Y V C^-C-''^*''-*^ rr^jr- 



FIVE TEAKS 



ENGLISH UNIVERSITY. 



CHARLES ASTOR BRISTED, 

liATE FOUNDATION SCHOLAB OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBBIDGE. 

THIRD EDITION. 
REVISED BY THE AUTHOE. 



a/Oi UK kx9po)v dTJTa TroAAa jiavOdvovav ol ao(j>oi. 

Abistoph. Aves, 376. 




NEW YOEK: 
G. P. PUTNAM & SONS, 

FOURTH AVENUE AND TWENTY-THIRD STREET. 
1873. ^ 






Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872, by 

G. P. PUTNAM & SONS, 
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



APR 18 1929 

Araiy and Navy Oluto 

' -yRhiaptoj:) D. G. 



UIDDLKTOF & C0,,'1TERE')TYPBB3j 
BRIDGSrOBT, OQNN. 



Lufos, Little & Hillman, Pbintebs, 103 WoosTsa St., N. Y. 



TO 

THEODORE D. WOOLSEY, 

president of yale college, etc., etc. 

Deab Sie : 

It is now fourteen years since I fell under your notice, and 
you did me the honor to take an interest in my welfare, which subsequent oc- 
currences authorize me to regard as still subsisting. I know of no one to whom 
I can dedicate this book with more propriety than yourself, or by whose peru- 
sal of it I shall feel more honored. If yjou read it, the trouble it has cost me 
will not have been thrown away. 

Very truly yours, 

C. A. BEISTED. 



PREFACE. 



I "WEITE tliis book for tkree reasons : 

First, very little is accurately known in tliis country 
about the English Universities. 

Secondly, most of what we hear respecting those institu- 
tions, comes through the medium of popular novels and 
other light literature, frequently written by non-University 
mien, and almost always conveying an erroneous and un- 
favorable idea of the Universities. 

Thirdly and principally, there are points in an English 
education which may be studied with profit, and from which 
we may draw valuable hints. 

Few Americans have the opportunity of growing up into 
manhood among half a generation of the most highly edu- 
cated class in England ; nor is it indeed altogether desirable 
that many should have. I myself owed it to an accident- 
There are few persons among us qualified by their knowledge 
of the subject to do it justice. Had I ever seen even a de- 
cent review article on English University education, this 
book would not have been written. 

It has been my object to give a picture of English Uni- 
versity life just as it is ; to do which correctly, I have 
been obliged to mingle gaieties and gravities — TTolla filv yeloia 
iroA/ld (5e c-KovSala. Should the reader not assent to my con- 
clusions, he will at any rate have a tolerable idea of the 
facts. The same motive — a desire to depict accurately what 
I saw and experienced, and the impressions which such a 
life makes on an American — has obliged me to speak of my- 
self more frequently than is altogether pleasant for either 
reader or author. 



viii Preface. 

0£ the bad arrangement ond want of system displayed 
in tlie book, I am as conscious as the severest critic can be. 
These faults must be attributed to want of ability, not want 
of care. To deal with the minutiae of a system so complica- 
ted as that of several independent Colleges combined in one 
University — rejecting what is unimportant, and lucidly set- 
ting forth what is worthy of remark — becomes an extremely 
difficult task where everything is so different from the cor- 
responding arrangements among ourselves. My original in- 
tention was to present merely a series of sketches, without 
any attempt at filling up the connecting links throughout. 
I began the sketches, and two different Magazines at differ- 
ent times began to publish them, but were very soon afraid 
to go on, because I did not pretend to conceal our inferiority 
to the English in certain branches of liberal education. I 
then resolved to refrain, not merely from publishing, but 
from writing any more, until as many years as I passed in 
England had elapsed since my return thence. With the ex- 
ception therefore of the first nine chapters, the whole of this 
work has been written during the past summer, and I can 
truly say that my opinions on all the matters discussed in it 
have undergone no important change for the last five years ; 
all my observation has tended to confirm them. 

Should this book fall into the hands of any Cambridge 
man, he may condemn it as abounding in petty and unin- 
teresting details. If so, I would commend to his attention a 
brief apologue : — 

An Arab traveller had occasion to visit London. On ar- 
riving there his attention was attracted by a great crowd in 
the street. He drew near, and found to his surprise and dis- 
appointment that the object of Cockney curiosity was a 
camel, belonging to the caravan of some Barnum of the day. 
He wrote home to his friends, " the frivolity and childishness 
of these English are intense. Yesterday I beheld a large 
concourse of people staring at an ordinary camel, that one of 
our boys would not have turned his head to look at." 

HoKNESHOOK, Hellgate, Sept. 1, 1851. 



PKEFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. 



The important changes that have taken place not only in 
the University itself, but in the outer world, since this book 
"was written, have rendered necessary the excision of several 
passages and the addition of a few paragraphs and notes. 

The additions are enclosed in brackets. 
Lenox, Mass, July, 1872. 



CONTENTS. 



Page. 
First Impressions of Cambridge ..... 13 

Some Particulars, rather Egotistical, but very Necessary 19 

Introduction to College Life 24 

The Cantab Language . 39 

An American Student's First Impressions at Cambridge and 

on Cambridge ..;..... 44 

Freshman Temj^tations and Experiences. — Toryism of the 

Young Men, and Ideas Suggested by it . . . 58 

The Boat Race 64 

A Trinity Supper Party ....... 71 

The May Examination ....... 84 

The First Long Vacation. — A Bad Start. — The Cambridge 

Credit System 103 

The Second Tear. — A Change of Dynasty. — The Little-Go. — 
Conflict of University and College Systems. — Various 
Examinations ........ 113 

Third Tear. — A Change of Position. — Scattering Shot, that 
Some may Hit. — College Declarations. — -Literary Friends, 
— " The Apostles." — Accidents of the Mathematical Tri- 
pos, and of the University Scholarship. — A Deserter from 
the Field of Battle. — An Outsider Wins. — University Le&- 
tures. — Plato Lectures, — Union Rows. — ^Disappointments 
and Consolations. — A Visit to Oxford . . . 149 



12 Contents. 

Page. 

Private Tuition 186 

Long Vacation Amusements.— Introduction of an Illustrious 

Stranger 200 

A Second Edition of Third Year.— A Crack Classical Coach, 

— Commemoration Speech. — I bet on the Winning Man 207 
The Scholarship Examination.— Neque semper Arcum tendit 

Apollo 238 

The Reading Party ....:... 251 

Sawdust Pudding with Ballad Sauce 257 

'Ev '^vpov 'Akut) ...... m • 279 

How I came to Take a Degree 298 

The ■nroX?.ol and the Civil Law Classes .... 309 

The Classical Tripos 313 

A Visit to Eton.— English Public Schools .... 322 

Being Extinguished 343 

Reading for a Trinity Eellowship 347 

The Study of Theology at Cambridge .... 357 

Recent Changes at Cambridge ...... 367 

The Cambridge System of Education in its Intellectual 

Results 378 

Physical and Social Habits of Cambridge Men. — Their 

Amusements, Etc 396 

On the State of Morals and Religion in Cambridge . . 411 
The Puseyite Disputes in Cambridge, and the Cambridge 

Camden Society ........ 430 

Inferiority of our Colleges and Universities in Scholarship 445 
Supposed Counterbalancing Advantages of American Col- 
leges 456 

The Advantages of Classical Studies, particularly in refer- 
ence to the Youth of our Country .... 476 
"What can we, and what ought we, to do for our Colleges . 50G 

Appendix, 517-573 



FIVE YEARS 

IN AN 

ENGLISH UNIVERSITY, 



FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF CAMBRIDGE. 

" The sage council not being able to determine upon any plan for the build- 
ing of their city, the cows, in a laudable fit of patriotism, took it under their 
peculiar charge ; and as tliey went to and fro from pasture, established paths 
through the bushes, on each side of -whicli the good folks built their houses." 

Knickeebocker's New Yobk. 

" And round the cool green courts there ran a row 

Of cloisters, branched like mighty woods, 
Ecboing all night to that sonorous flow 
Of spouted fountain floods." 

Tennyson's Palace of Art. 

IMAGINE the most irregular town that can be im- 
agined, streets of the very crookedest kind, twisting 
about like those in a nightmare, and not unfrequently 
bringing you back to the same point you started from. 
Some of these tortuous lanes are without trottoirs, like 
the sti-eets of old Continental towns; but it is more 
common to find a passage or short street all sideicalJc — 
as we call what the English call causeicay — without any 
carriage road. The houses are low and antique ; some- 
times their upper stories project out into and over the 
narrow pathway, making it still narrower ; and their 
lower stories are usually occupied as shops — tailors and 
booksellers being the predominant varieties. Every 



14 Five Years in an English University. 

now and then your road passes over a muddy little riv- 
er, not larger than a tolerable canal, which rambles 
through and about the town in all sorts of ways, so that 
in whatever direction you walk from any point, you are 
pretty sure to come to a bridge before long. Such is 
the town of Cambridge — the bridge over the Cam. 

Among these narrow, ugly and dirty streets, are 
tumbled in, as it were at random (for the whole place 
looks as if it had been dancing to Amphion's music, and 
he had left off in the middle of a very complicated fig- 
ure) some of the most beautiful academical buildings in 
the world. However their style of architecture may 
vary, according to the period at which they they were 
built or rebuilt, they agree in one essential feature : all 
the colleges are constructed in quadrangles or courts ; 
and, as in course of years the population of every college, 
excejDt one,* has outgrown the original quadrangle, new 
courts have been added, so that the larger foundations 
have three, and one (St. John's) has four coui'ts. Some- 
times the " old court," or primitive part of the building 
presents a handsome front to the largest street near it ; 
but frequently, as if to show its independence of, and 
contempt for , the town, it retires from the street alto- 
gether, showing the passer by only its ugliest wall, and 
smallest, shabbiest gate. This is particularly the case 
with the very largest and most distinguished colleges. 

You enter, then, by a portal neither particularly large 
nor very striking in its appearance, but rather the re- 
verse, into a spacious and elegant square. There are 
neat grass-plots and walks, a fountain in the centre ; on 
one side stands a well proportioned chapel, in one cor- 

* Downing College, wMcli only went into operation in 1800, 
and may be considered still in its infancy. 



Five Years in an English University. 15 

ner you catch a glimpse through a tantalizing grating, of 
a beautiful garden, appropriated to the delectation of 
the authorities. In a second court you find somiding 
and venerable cloisters, perhaps a veritable structure of 
monkish times ; if not, a satisfactory imitation of that pe- 
riod. And as you look on the walls, here rich with sculp- 
tured ornament, there covered with trailing and festoon- 
ing ivy, the theory and idea of the college edifice begin to 
strike you — ^its front is inside for its ovni benefits ; it 
turns its back upon the vulgar outside. But you have 
not yet fathomed and sounded its spirit of seclusion. 
The entries are narrow and low ; the staircases narrow 
and tortuous; the iron-bound doors, closed by some 
mysterious spring, or open only to show another door 
within, look like the portals of a feudal dungeon. But 
up those break-neck staircases, and inside those formid- 
able doors (sometimes with the additional preliminary 
of a small, dark passage), are luxurious suites of rooms, 
not exactly like those of a Parisian hotel or a " double- 
house " in the Fifth Avenue, but quite as beautiful and 
much more comfortable. The apartments and the 
entrance seem made in inverse proportion to each 
other ; a mere hole in the wall sometimes leads you to 
half a house of rooms ; and most cosy rooms they are, 
with their prodigiously thick walls that keep out the 
cold in winter, and heat (when there is any) in summer ; 
their impregnable sporting-doors that defy alike the 
hostile dun and the too friendly " fast man," and all their 
quaint appurtenances, such as book-cases of the true 
scholastic sort, sunk into and forming part of the wall, 
so that it would not be easy to appropriate them or the 
space they occupy to any other purpose : queer little 
nooks of studies, just large enough to hold a man in an 
arm-chair and a big dictionary; unexpected garrets, which 



16 Five Years in an English University. 

the very occupant of the rooms never goes into with- 
out an air of enterprise and mystery, and which the old 
priests used for oratories — perhaps ; the modern Can- 
tabs keep their wine in them. 

Late in October, 1840, a young New Yorker was 
losing himself among the impracticable streets, and ad- 
miring the remarkable edifices of Cambridge. He was 
surprised at the number and variety of the academical 
buildings and their distance from one another ; for, 
though knowing that the different colleges were sepa- 
rate and independent foundations, connected only by a 
few general ties, he had expected something like contig- 
uity of location, and was not j)repared to find them 
scattered over an area of some miles. Nor was it with- 
out some degree of curiosity that he inspected such of 
the poj)ulation as he met, a curiosity which they were 
not slow to retaliate with abundance of eye-glasses. 
Dressed in the last Gothamite fashion, with the usual 
accessories of gold chain and diamond pin, the whole 
surmounted by a blue cloth cloak, he certainly bore 
no resemblance, in point of costume, to any of the ac- 
ademical public whom he encountered. The Cantabs' 
garb generally consists of a not too new black coat 
(frock or cutaway), trousers of some substantial stuff, 
grey or plaid, and a stout waistcoat, frequently of the 
same pattern as the trousers. Straps are unknown to 
him, and instead of boots he wears easy low-heeled shoes, 
for greater convenience in fence and ditch jumping, and 
other feats of extempore gymnastics which diversify his 
" constitutionals." The only showy part of his attire is 
the cravat, which is apt to be blue or some other decided 
color,* and fastened "in front with a large gold-headed 

* "Words of this class I spell without the u, because the practice 



Five Years in an English University. 17 

pin. During the middle of the day this outfit is com- 
pleted by a hat of the average ugliness of English hats, 
but before 12 A. M., and after 4 p. M.,you must superadd 
the academical costume. This consists of a gown, va- 
rying in color and ornament according to the wearer's 
college and rank, but generally black, not imlike an or- 
dinary clerical gown, and a square-toj^ped cap, which 
fits close to the head like a truncated helmet, while the 
covered board which forms the crown measures about a 
foot diagonally across. It is not by any means a sine 
qua non that the cap and gown should be in good order 
and condition ; the latter is often sadly torn and faded, 
while the former retains but few traces of its original 
form after the rough usage it has imdergone. To steal 
caps and gowns is no more an ofi'ence against the eighth 
commandment in Cambridge, than to steal umbrellas is 
with us — an additional reason for their appearance being 
little thought of In one thing only is the Cantab par- 
ticulai- — the one nicety of every English gentleman, 
however clumsy or shabby the rest of his dress may be 
— his linen is always faultless. A dirty shirt, or even a 
badly got up one, is a phenomenon in the University. 
Peculiar as the academic costume is, its efiect is by no 
means imbecoming ; on the contrary, it adds, in a ma- 
jority of cases, to the dignity and style of the wearer. 

Nor must it be supposed that the gownsmen are thin, 
study-worn, consumptive-looking individuals. The 
stranger's first impression was, that he had never seen 
so fine a body of young men together. Almost every 
man looked able and ready to row eight miles, walk 

of good writers varies sufficiently to leave their orthogxapliy an 
open question and allow any person to adopt whichever form he 
prefers ; not because Webster, who is no authority at all among 
scholars, spells them thus. 



18 Five Years in an English University. 

twelve, or ride twenty " across country," at the shortest 
notice, or to eat half a leg of mutton and drink a quart 
of ale after it. One would hardly suspect them to be 
students at all, did not the number of glasses hint that 
those who carried them had impau-ed their sight by 
late reading. 

The young American who noted these particulars 
felt somewhat bashful among a crowd of strangers, even 
as he does now on making his appearance before you, 
reader. Yet it is necessary that he should go on, how- 
ever painful it may be to his modesty, to tell how he 
came there, and for what purpose, which he will do as 
briefly as possible in the next chapter. 



Five Years in an English University. 19 



SOME PRELIMIN'AKIES EATHEE, EGOTISTICAL BUT VERY 

NECESSARY. 

Oro te, quis tu es ?— Ciceeo to Tbebattus. 

I WAS fifteen years old when I went to New Haven 
to enter the Freshman class, at Yale College. In 
the school where I prepared, one of the masters was 
an Englishman, and the instruction given partly on the 
English model. I had been fitted for Columbia College, 
the standard for the Freshman class in which institu- 
tion was then nearly equal to that for the Sophomore at 
Yale. (I never met a New Englander who knew this, 
or could be made to believe it, but it is perfectly true 
notwithstanding.) The stai't which I had thus obtained 
confirmed me m. the habits of idleness to which a boy 
just emancipated from school is prone, when he has 
nothing immediately before him to excite his ambition. 
During the first year I did little but read novels and at- 
tend debating societies ; and the comparison of my ex- 
perience with that of others leads me to conclude that 
this is the case with most boys who enter well prepared 
at a New England College ; they go backwards rather 
than forwards the first year. In the second year came on 
a great deal of mathematics, laborious rather than diffi- 
cult ; much of it consisted in mere mechanical working 
of examples in trigonometry and mensuration, which 
were nearly as great a bore to the best mathematicians 
in the class as to the worst. I never had any love for or 
skill in pure science ; and my health, moreover, being none 
of the best, I very early in the Sophomore year gave up all 



20 Five Years in an English University. 

thoughts of obtaining high honors, and settled down con- 
tentedly among the twelve or fifteen who are bracketed 
after the first two or three, as " English Orations." 
There were four prizes, one in each year, which could 
be obtained by classics alone, and of these I was fortun- 
ate enough to gain three. But they were very imper- 
fect tests ; indeed there was at that time no direct 
means of determining who was the best, or second, or 
third, classical scholar in any class. 

Most of our young countrymen are eager to rush 
into their destined profession immediately on leaving col- 
lege, at the age of eighteen or nineteen. Several of my 
contemporaries did not wait for Commencement day to 
begin, nommally at least, their professional studies ; but 
I was by no means in a hurry to finish my education, 
thinking that a long start is often the safest ; especially 
as I was looking forwai-d to a profession which, above all 
others, should be entered on after much deliberation and 
mature judgment. But when it came to starting, my 
courage failed me ; I was afraid to expose my ignorance 
abroad, and determined to stay at home another year. 
This year I would willingly have spent in my native city, 
as affording more advantages for study ; but those who 
had the disposal of me thought it best that I should re- 
main at New Haven, where accordingly I took up my 
quarters again as a resident graduate- — a very rare ani- 
mal in those parts. Poor Mason, who was to have been 
our great American astronomer, was my only compan- 
ion in that ])Osition. The experience of that year fully 
justifies me in asserting, that if I wished to unmake a 
partially formed scholar, and to divert the attention of a 
young man who had a taste that way from such studies, 
I would send him to reside in no place sooner than in a 
New England college town. There was no one able to 



Five Years in an English University. 21 

instruct me or inclined to sympathize with me, except 
two or three gentlemen whose professional duties in the 
college rendered it impossible for them to give me any 
regular assistance; but there were plenty of debating 
societies all about, and no end of young debaters. With- 
out being considered much of a " speaker " or " writer " 
as an under-graduate, I had figured to some extent in the 
Yale Literary, and had just attained that heart jour de 
la vie M'hen a young man gets his first " piece " into a 
city magazine. All this fostered the habits of semi-lit- 
erary idleness which the (so-called) studies of the senior 
year appear purposely framed to encourage. Moreover, 
I formed rather an intimate acquaintance with a Missis- 
sippian (it was before the days of repudiation), who was 
always anxious to talk politics, and we used to read 
about a dozen newspapers a day, and throw the contents 
of them at each other. When it is stated that I was an 
ultra abolition Whig, and he a slaveholding Democrat, 
the quantity of belligerent nonsense we interchanged, and 
the valuable result of our discussions may be easily im- 
agined. The only tangible residuum that I ever realized 
from our debates was a pretty large bill for cakes, ice 
cream, and sherry cobblers. Indeed, so put to it was I 
for some daily work to balance me, as it were, and give 
me regular habits of study, that for the last three months 
of the year I joined the Law School ; and then finding 
what I ought to have known before, that I should 
never make any progress in scholarship by myself at 
New Haven, I packed my trunks for England. 

Still it would be unjust to myself to say that I had 
absolutely wasted the twelve months. They were only 
comparatively lost. I did about as much in them as I 
ought to have done in three or four. I had broken 
ground in Juvenal, Thucydides, Aristophanes, and Pin- 



22 Five Years in an English University. 

dar, authors who then seldom entered into the reading 
of an American college student : on the whole, it may 
fairly be said that I was a favora,ble specimen of a grad- 
uate from a New England College, and rather above the 
average than below it. Of mathematics I knew only a 
little Euclid and algebra, having gone through the col- 
lege course of Mechanics, Conic sections, etc., to as much 
purpose as some travellers go through various countries. 

As to the rest of my education and accomplishments, 
they were the usual ones of an American student ; that 
is to say, I could talk a little French and Spanish, and 
read a little German ; had a boarding-school girl's knowl- 
edge of the names and rudimentary formulae of two or 
three sciences ; could wiite newspaper articles in prose 
or verse ; had a strong tendency to talk politics ; and 
never saw a crowd of people together without feeling 
as if I should like to get up and make them a speech 
about things in general. I had read abundance of nov- 
els, poetry, and reviews ; a fair share of English history, 
and a great deal of what the school books and the news- 
paper reporters call " specimens of eloquence." I had a 
supreme opinion of my country (except in matters of 
scholarship), and a pretty good opinion of myself. To 
complete the list, it should be added, that I could black 
my own boots, and, on a pinch, wash my own handker- 
chiefs. In short, with the exception of easiness of man- 
ner and presence of mind (two qualities in which I have 
always been deficient), I made a very tolerable represen- 
tative for the reading section of Young America to send 
among English scholars. 

It is very awkward to write these things about one's 
self, but it seems imj)ossible to dispense with them. In 
the course of this book, different standards of education, 
and the comparative knowledge of instructors, as well 



Five Years in an English University, 23 

as pupils, in different places, will be very freely spoken 
of; and the reader who conies to these comparisons will 
naturally ask, what were my qualifications for form- 
ing any opinion on these subjects at all. And unless I 
tell him, it would not be easy for him to find out ; for 
though the internal evidence of this book may sufficient- 
ly expose my fitness or unfitness for the task at present, 
still in order to estimate my progress or profit at the 
University, he must know something of the foundation 
I had to build upon, which such indirect internal evi- 
dence would not supply. 



24 Five Years in an English University, 



I]SrTRODUCTIOK TO COLLEGE LIFE. 
Discipliais bonis operam dato. — Cambridge Statutes. 

THE first thing that the American reader has to im- 
press on his mind is, that the several Colleges are 
distinct and independent corporations. They are on 
different foundations, that is to say, the funds which sup- 
port them are derived from different sources ; their offi- 
cers are distinct, their lecture-room subjects different, 
though with a general resemblance ; their very gowns 
vary. The confederation of these indei^endent corpora- 
tions constitutes the University, which may, in its relation 
to the colleges composing it, be compared to our Federal 
Government in its relation to the separate States — with 
this important historical difference, however, that the 
Colleges sprang into existence subsequent to the found- 
ing of the University. Indeed, the only practical con- 
nection that the Under-graduate usually has with the 
University in its corporate capacity (unless he should 
be of a riotous turn, so as to bring himself under the 
Proctor's notice) consists in his previous examination, 
alias the " Little Go," and his final examination for a 
degree, with or without honors. Robinson, of Trinity, 
may be three years in the University with Brown, of 
Corpus, and never come in contact with him, or be 
aware of his existence, till in the last Long Vacation, when 
he is putting on all steam and " coaching " violently for 
the Classical TrijDos, he hears suddenly one day at a wine 
party that " Bennedy has a Corpus man readmg with 



Five Tears in an English University. 25 

him, who is likely to be among the first five." Then, 
for the first time, has Brown an existence iov him. 

When, thei-efore, a boy, or, as we should call him, a 
young man, leaves his school, public or private, at the 
age of eighteen or nineteen, and " goes up " to the Uni- 
versity, he necessarily goes up to some particular Col- 
lege, and the first academical authority he makes ac- 
quaintance with in the regular order of things is the 
College Tutor. This gentleman has usually taken high 
honors either in Classics or Mathematics, and one of his 
duties is naturally to lecture — only you may be sure that 
if he has a turn for Classics he is not set to lecture on 
Mathematics, or vice versa, as used to be the case at 
Yale. But this by no means constitutes the whole or 
forms the most important part of his functions. He is 
the medium of all the students' j^ecuniary relations with 
the College. He sends in their accounts every term, 
and receives the money through his banker ; nay more, 
he takes in the bills of their tradesmen, and settles them 
also. Further, he has the disposal of the college rooms, 
and assigns them to their respective occupants. When 
I speak of the College Tutor, it must not be supposed 
that one man is equal to all this work in a large college 
— Trinity, for instance, which usually numbers four hun- 
dred iinder-graduates in residence. A large college has 
usually two Tutors — Trinity has three — and the students 
are equally divided among them — on their sides the 
phrase is — without distinction of year, or, as we should 
call it, of class. The jurisdiction of the rooms is divided 
in like manner. The Tutor is supposed to stand in loco 
parentis — but having sometimes more than a hundred 
young men under him, he cannot discharge his duties in 
this respect very thoroughly, nor is it generally expect- 
ed that he should. 
2 



26 Five Years in an English University. 

To the Tutor, then, you go in October. Your name 
has been on the books since July. Mine was not, as I 
was a stranger. But that is merely form. Before you 
are fairly in your college, you must pass an examination. 
At many of the colleges this is little more than nominal, 
any Master of Arts being qualified to admit a candidate ; 
but at Trinity there is a regular test, though it must be 
owned the standard is not very high. The candidates 
for admission are examined in the First Book of the Iliad, 
the First book of the ^neid, some easy Greek and Latin 
Prose, Arithmetic, the elements of Algebra, two Books 
of Euclid, and Paley's Natural Theology. Any one fit- 
ted for the Sophomore Class at Yale could pass here 
without trouble. The candidates are generally well 
prepared, and the examiners lenient : out of one hun- 
dred and thirty or more who ofier themselves there are 
seldom more than four or five rejected. The principle 
seems to be, " Let in every one, and if they can't keep 
on, that is their lookout." In this way, various initia-- 
tion fees are secured which would otherwise be lost. 
On a rough estimate, out of one hundred and twenty 
who enter every year at Trinity, more than twenty drop 
ofi" by the beginning of the second year. This is the 
only entrance examination, and however much you may 
know, there is no such thing as entering in advance of 
the Freshman year, save only for men migrating from 
Oxford, who are allowed their Oxford terms, and can 
take second or third year rank at once. The regular 
examiners are the Dean and Head Lecturer. The lat- 
ter functionary was busy about some other matters when 
I presented myself several days after the beginning of 
the term. Accordingly, I was told that my classical ex- 
amination would be postponed to some convenient op- 
portunity, and meanwhile th3 Senior Dean would admit 



Five Years in an English University. 27 

me on passing the mathematical part of the examination 
privately to him. This was the very thing I did not 
want, for I had literally not opened a mathematical book 
for two years. In a mixed examination I hoped that my 
classics would carry me through, but now I Avas called 
on to put the worst foot foremost at once. However, 
there was no help for it, so to the Dean's rooms I went 
next morning, and scribbled away for three or four 
hours, doing Quadratic Equations, and the Pons Asino- 
rum^ by avafivtiaig, as a Cantab says of doing anything which 
you learned so long ago that it seems to have been in a 
dilFerent stage of your being. Paley I had read within 
a year, and worked out an elaborate picture of the hu- 
man eye to complete my performances. Somehow I 
nearly floored the paper, and came out feeling much more 
comfortable than when I went in. I might have been 
easy about it any way, for the Dons are always ready to 
smooth the entrance for a Fellow-Commoner, and it was 
among this class of students that I enrolled myself by 
the Dean's advice. 

These Fellow-Commoners are "young men of for- 
tune," as the Carahridge Calendar and Cambridge Guide 
have it, who, in consideration of their paying twice as 
much for every thing as anybody else, are allowed the 
privilege of sitting at the Fellows' table in Hall and in 
their seats at Chapel ; of wearing a gown with gold or 
silver lace, and a velvet cap with a metallic tassel ; of 
having the first choice of rooms ; and as is generally be- 
lieved, and believed not without reason, of getting off 
with a less number of chapels j)er week. Among them 
are included the Honorables 7iot eldest sons — only these 
wear a hat instead of the velvet cap, and are thence pop- 
ularly known as Sat Fellow-Commoners. The noble- 
men proper, or eldest sons (of whom there are never 



28 Five Years in an English University. 

many in Cambridge, Oxford presenting more attractions 
for tliem), wear the plain black silk gown and hat of an 
M. A.,* except on feast days and state occasions, when 
they come out in gowns still more gorgeous than those 
of the Fellow-Commoners. A Fellow-Commoner of 
economical habits (and it is not easy for one of them to 
be of such habits) requires £500 a year, and for the gen- 
erality of them £800 is not too much. I made the ex- 
periment with £400, partly from ignorance, partly from 
the dashing way an American has of going at any thing 
and trusting to Providence to get through.! The not 
surprising result was, that at the end of seven months 
I foxmd myself a thousand dollars in debt. Indeed, 
so great is the expense necessarily incurred by this 
class, to say nothing of their greater temptation to un- 
necessary expenses, that even eldest sons of peers some- 
times come up as Pensioners, and younger sons continu- 
ally do. 

Pensioner is the name given to the main body of the 
students. Sizars answer to the beneficiaries of Amer- 
ican colleges. They receive pecuniary assistance from 
the College, and dine gratis after the Fellows on the re- 
mains of their table. J In former times they waited on 
the Fellows at dinner, but this practice has long been 
abolished, 

* The initials of English academical titles always correspond 
to the English, not to the Latin of the titles, B.A., M.A., D.D., 
D.C.L., etc. 

f I was recommended to enter as rellow-Commoner, because it 
would open to me the society of the Fellows and older men, which 
indeed is the only real advantage of the position. 

X These " remains " are very liberally construed, the Sizars al- 
ways having fresh vegetables, and frequently fresh tarts and pud- 
dings. 



Five Years in an English University. 29 

The Freshman, when once safe through his examin- 
ation, is first inducted into his rooms by a gyp, usually 
recommended to him by his tutor. The gyp from yiyv 
vulture, evidently a nickname at first, but now the only 
name applied to this class of persons) is a college ser- 
vant, who attends upon a number of students, sometimes 
as many as twenty, calls them in the morning, brushes 
their clothes, carries for them parcels and the queerly- 
twisted notes they are continually writing to one other, 
waits at their parties, and so on. Cleaning their boots 
is not in his branch of the profession ; there is a regular 
brigade of college shoe-blacks. The new-comer gener- 
ally finds his apartment ready prepared for him, it being 
the custom for him to take the former tenant's furniture 
at a valuation by the college upholsterer, and make such 
sixbsequont additions to, or alterations in it, as his con- 
venience requires, or his fancy suggests. Thus the 
movables and fittings of a room are not generally re- 
ncAved all at once, but piecemeal, from time to time. 
The ajjpearance of a student's aj^artment, though by no 
means splendid, is decidedly comfortable; it is well 
cushioned and sofaed, with a proper proportion of arm- 
chairs, and a general air of respectability — much better 
on the whole than our students' rooms ever are. Fifty 
pounds would not be a high estimate for the usual value 
of the furniture. But the new occupant finds one de- 
ficiency. All the glass, china, and crockery of the man go- 
ing out become, by immemorial usage, the bed-maker's 
property ; accordingly, our Freshman's first business is 
to provide himself, usually under the gyp's guidance, 
with a tea-set, and other like necessaries, among which 
decanters and wine-glasses figure conspicuously. An 
American student is somewhat surprised at having these 
articles recommended to him, as it were, by the college 



30 Five Years in an English University. 

authorities. This is only the beginning of what he has 
to learn. 

The hed-inahers are the women who take care of the 
rooms ; there is about one to each staircase, that is to 
say, to every eight rooms. For obvious reasons they 
are selected from such of the fair sex as have long passed 
the age at which they might have had any personal at- 
tractions. The first intimation that your bed-maker 
gives you is that she is bound to report you to the tutor 
if ever you stay out of your rooms all night. 

And now having fairly installed the Freshman in his 
quarters, let us begin the day with him. Morning chapel 
goes in at seven, and as the English student does not 
pretend to the railroad speed of the American in mak- 
ing his toilet, the gyp is directed to call him at half-past 
six, or a little earlier. The bell tolls slowly for five 
minutes, and strikes rapidly for five more before seven. 
Our Freshman is sure to be early, and does not require 
the three or five minutes' grace allowed after the clock 
strikes before the gates are shut. 

However much the chapels of the various colleges 
may difier in size and architectural beauty, they agree in 
their arrangement. On entering that of Trinity, you 
find yourself in the ante-chapel, surrounded by monu- 
ments of distinguished scholars and divines, eminent 
among which stands out a fine statue of ISTewton. Pass- 
ing through an oaken screen, you walk down the long 
marble floor, between rows of movable benches, upon 
which the Pensioners sit, without distinction of year or 
person. The Scholars, Bachelor, or Undergraduate, sit 
on seats behind and above the Pensioners, and above 
them again, along the walls, are the seats of Noblemen, 
Fellow- Commoners, and Fellows, and the desks of 
the Dean and college officers. The students, as they 



Five T'ears in an English University. 31 

enter, are marked with pins on long alphabetical lists, 
by two college servants, who are so experienced and 
clever at their business that they never have to ask the 
name of a new-comer more than once. 

It is in the chapel that the tyro generally begins to 
get definite ideas of the powers that be in the college, 
and this is accordingly the fittest place for introducing 
them. 

The college authorities (in University slang-phrase the 
Dons) are designated in the most general terms as the 
Master and Felloios. The Master of the College, or 
" Head of the House," is a D.D., who has been a Fel- 
low. He is the supreme ruler within the college walls, 
and moves about like an Undergraduate's deity, keeping 
at an awful distance from the students, and not letting 
himself be seen too frequently even at chapel. Besides 
his fat salary and house (technically known as the Lodge), 
he enjoys many perquisites and pi-ivileges, not the least 
of which is that of committing matrimony. 

The Fellows, who form the general body from which 
the other college ofiicers are chosen, consist of those four 
or five Bachelor Scholars in each year who pass the best 
examination in Classics, Mathematics, and Metaphysics. 
This examination being a severe one, and only the last 
of many trials which they have gone through, the infer- 
ence is allowable that they are the most learned of the 
College graduates. They have a handsome income, 
whether resident or not; but if resident, enjoy the ad- 
ditional advantages of a well-spread table for nothing, 
and good rooms at a very low price. The only condi- 
tions of retaining their Fellowships are that they take 
orders after a certain time and remain unmarried. Of 
those who do not fill college oflices, some occupy them- 
selves with private pupils ; others, who have property 



32 Five Years in an English University. 

of their own, prefer to live a life of literary leisure, like 
some of their predecessors, the monks of old. The eight 
oldest Fellows at any time in residence, together with 
the Master, have the government of the college vested 
in them. 

The Dean is the presiding officer in chapel, and the 
only one whose presence there is indispensable. He 
oversees the markers' lists, pulls up the absentees and 
receives their excuses. This office is no sinecure in a 
large college ; at Trinity they have been forced to divide 
the work, and appoint a Junior Dean. It is rather sur- 
prising that there should be so much shirking of chapel, 
when the very moderate amount of attendance required 
is considered. The Undergraduate is expected to go to 
chapel eight times, or in academic parlance, to keep eight 
chapels a week, two on Sunday, and one on every week 
day, attending morning or evening chapel on week days 
at his option. Nor is even this indulgent standard rig- 
idly enforced. I believe if a Pensioner keeps six chap- 
els, or a Fellow- Commoner four, and is quite regular in 
all other respects^ he will never be troubled by the Dean. 
It certainly is an argument in favor of severe discipline, 
that there is more grumbling and hanging back, and un- 
willingness to conform to these extremely moderate re- 
quisitions, than is exhibited by the sufferers at a New 
England college, who have to keep sixteen chapels a 
week, seven of them at unreasonable hours. Even the 
Scholars, who are literally paid for going, every chapel 
being directly worth two shillings sterling to them, are 
by no means invariable in attending the proper number 
of times. 

Other officers are, the Yice Master^ the Bursar^ i. e., 
the College Purse-hearer or Treas^<rer, and his assistant; 
Lecturers, assistant Lecturers, and assistant Tutors to 



Five Years in cm English University. 33 

the number of nearly twenty (some of these, however, 
are non-residents, and only appear at examinations); 
fom* Chaplains, and the Librariafi. These last five are 
the only officers not Fellows. They are usually se- 
lected from the Bachelor Scholars who have just missed 
Fellowships. 

The Chapel service occupies, as nearly as may be, 
half an hour. After this, it is the custom to take a fif- 
teen minutes walk in the college grounds, for the purpose 
of affording the bed-maker time to get the rooms in 
good order, and of giving the student an appetite for 
his breakfast. By eight, he is seated before his comfort- 
ably blazing coal fire (how different from our scorching, 
smouldering anthracite !), with his kettle boiling merrily, 
and the materials for his morning meal on a diminutive 
table near him. These are of the simplest description — 
rolls, butter, and tea: an excellent preparation for a 
morning's reading. The mention of breakfast conveys 
to a Cantab no ideas of ham and beef-steaks ; and if re- 
miniscences of cold game pie and hot cutlets are ever 
called up by it, it is on account of those occasional 
breakfast parties, which from their late hour (eleven) 
bear more resemblance to a luncheon. 

At nine, Lectures begin, and continue till twelve. 
There are some ten or eleven going on at once. The 
established length of each lecture is one hour. For the 
Freshmen there are two, a classical and a mathematical, 
both which they are required to attend ; the Second and 
Third-year men have their choice of one lecture among 
three or four. The lecturer stands, and the lectured 
sit, even when construing, as the Freshmen are some- 
times asked to do ; the other Years are only called on to 
listen. The practice of taking notes is very general ; 
there is plenty of stationery ready provided on the 



34 Fwe Years in an English University. 

desks, but the students usually bring their own note- 
books and pens. 

Having mentioned Second and Third-year men^ it 
may be well for me to state at onoe that there are no 
such beings as Sophoinores at an English University.* 
The undergraduate course is three years and a third, 
and the students who have completed their first year are 
called successively Junior Sophs (abbreviated for Soph- 
isters), Senior Sophs, and Questionists / or, more popu- 
larly, Second-year men, Third-year ineix and Men who 
are just gohig out. 

It is generally some time before one, when the stu- 
dent resoi-ts to his private tutor. This gentleman, being 
a most important personage, is to have justice done him 
hereafter at length. Sufiice it to say, for the present, 
that he is by no means an " aristocratic ajDpendage," as a 
wise ]3rofessor on this side the water once imagined, but 
an ordinary and almost absolutely necessary feature in 
the college life of every student, rich or poor. With 
this tutor, who is either a Fellow, or a Bachelor trying 
for a Fellowship, our Freshman reads a portion of some 
author he has prepared, or undergoes an examination (by 
pen, ink, and paper, as all examinations here are) on 
something he has not prepared for the purpose. With 
a mathematical tutor, the hour of tuition is a sort of famil- 
iar examination, working out examples, deductions, etc. 

From two to four is the traditional time of exercise, 
two hours hard exercise a-day being considered (as it is) 
little enough for a man who wishes to keep his body in 
proper vigor. The ignorance of the popular mind has 
often represented academicians riding, travelling, etc., in 

* At Trinity College, Dublin, tliere are four classes of Under- 
graduates : tlie first two are called Junior Freshman and Senior 
Freshman. 



Five Years in an English University. 35 

cap and gown. Any one who has had experience of the 
academic costume can tell that a sharp walk on a windy 
day in it is no easy matter, and a ride or a row would 
be pretty near an impossibility. Indeed, dm-ing these 
two hours it is as rare to see a student in a gown as it is 
at other times to find him beyond the college walks 
without one. The most usual mode of exercise is walk- 
ing — const itutionalizing is the Cantab for it. The coun- 
try for miles aroimd is very flat, and the roads are very 
good, two circumstances highly encouraging to pedes- 
trianism. After walking comes rowing, which may in- 
deed be called the distinguishing amusement of English 
University students. Cricketing, and all games of ball, 
are much practised in their respective seasons. 

During the quarter of an hour preceding four p. M., 
the students come flocking into their colleges and rooms 
to prepare for dinner. The academic caj) and gown are 
resumed, and the hall croAvded with hungry Under- 
graduates, who are not, however, admitted within the 
screen until the Fellows and Fellow-Commoners have 
assembled. Then a Latin grace is read by two of the 
Dons, and forthwith the demolition of eatables pro- 
ceeds. The tables of the Undergraduates, arranged ac- 
cording to their respective years, are suj^plied with 
abundance of plain joints, and vegetables, and beer and 
ale ad libitum, besides which, soup, pastry, and cheese 
can be " sized for," that is, brought in portions to indi- 
viduals at an extra charge ; so that on the whole a very 
comfortable meal might be efiected but for the crowd 
and confusion, in which respect the hall dinner much 
resembles our steamboat meals. The attendance also is 
very deficient and of the roughest sort. But some of 
the company are better ofi". At a raised dais at one end 
of the hall the Fellows, Noblemen, and Fellow-Corn- 



36 Five Years in an JEnglish University. 

mouers are banqueting on a dinner of three courses, with 
port and sherry, in addition to the malt liquor, and 
abundance of orderly and well-dressed waiters. Along 
the wall you see two tables, which, though less carefully 
provided than the Fellows', are still served with toler- 
able decency and go through a regular second course in- 
stead of the " sizings." The occupants of the upper or 
inner table are men apparently from twenty-two to 
twenty-six years of age, and wear black gowns with two 
strings hanging loose in front. If this table has less 
state than the adjoining one of the Fellows, it has more 
mirth and brilhancy ; many a good joke seems to be 
going the rounds. These are the Bachelors, most of 
them Scholars reading for Fellowships, and nearly all 
of them private tutors. Although Bachelors in Arts, 
they are considered, both as respects the College and the 
University, to be in statu pupillari until they become 
M. A.'s. They pay a small sum in fees nominally for 
tuition, and are liable to the authority of that mighty 
man, the Proctor. The table nearer the door is filled by 
students in the ordinary Undergraduate blue gown ; 
but from the better service of their table, and perhaps 
some little consequential air of their own, it is plain that 
they have something peculiar to boast of They are the 
Foundation Scholars, from whom the future Fellows are 
to be chosen, in the proportion of about one out of three. 
Their Scholarships are gained by examination in the 
second or third year, and entitle them to a pecuniary al- 
lowance from the college, and also to their commons 
gratis (these latter subject to certain attendance at and 
services in chapel), a first choice of rooms, and some 
other little j^rivileges, of which they are somcAvhat 
proud, and occasionally they look as if conscious that 
some Don may be saying to a chance visitor at the high 



Five Years m an English TJniversity. 37 

table " those over yonder are the Scholars, the best men 
of their year." 

Hall lasts about three quarters of an hour. Two 
Scholars conclude the performances by reading a long 
Latin grace. The Dons are too full after dinner to read 
their own grace — such at least is the jesting traditionary 
explanation of the custom, and certainly on one or two 
occasions, when the officiating Scholars haj^pened to be 
7ion inventi, I have heard the presiding dignitary return 
thanks in just two w^ords, to wit, JBenedicto benedicatur. 

x\fter Hall is emphatically lounging time, it being the 
wise practice of Englishmen to attemj)t no hard exercise, 
physical or mental, immediately after a hearty meal. 
Some stroll in the grounds if the weather is fine, many 
betake themselves to the Union Society Reading-room 
to glance over the newspapers and periodicals, and many 
assemble at wine parties to chat over a frugal dessert of 
oranges, biscuits, and cake, and sip a few glasses of not 
remarkably good wine. These wineparties are the most 
common entertainments, being rather the cheapest and 
very much the most convenient, for the preparations re- 
quired for them are so slight as not to disturb the studies 
of the hardest reading man, and they take place at a 
time when no one jDretends to do any work. 

At six P. M., the chapel bell rings again. The at- 
tendance is more numerous now than it was in the 
monaing. On Satiirday evenings, Sundays, and Saints' 
days the students wear surplices instead of their gowns, 
and very innocent and exemplary they look in them. It 
must be owned that their conduct in chapel is very or- 
derly and proper, considering th.e great opportunities 
afforded for subdued conversation by the way in which 
they are crowded together when kneeling. After chapel 
the evening reading begins in earnest. Most of the 



38 F'me Years in an English University. 

Cantabs are late readers, so that supposing one of them 
to begin at seven, he will not leave off before half-past 
eleven, thus clearing more than four hours' consecutive 
work, his only intermission being to take a cup or two 
of tea, sometimes, but not often, accompanied by a slice 
of bread-and-butter. One solid meal a-day is the rule ; 
even when they go out to sup, as a reading-man does 
perhaps once a term and a rowing-man twice a week, 
they eat very moderately though their potations are 
sometimes of the deepest. Some students go to their pri- 
vate tutors in the evening ; not unfrequently two or 
three meet in one another's rooms alternately to read 
some classical author or talk problems together — a very 
sociable way of acquiring learning. 

Such is the reading-man's day ; as to how the rowing- 
man passes his I say nothing for the present. He is the 
abnormal development of the type, and the considera- 
tion of his pursuits need not now be dwelt upon. 



Five Years in an English University. 39 



THE OANTAB LANGUAGE. 

" A quoy Pantagruel dist ; Que diable de langTiaige est cecy ? Par Dieu, tu 
es quelque hereticque. ' Seignor, non,' dist I'escholier, 'car libentissement des 
CO qu'il illucesce quelque minutule lesclie du jour je demigre en quelqu'ung de 
ces tant bien architectez monstiers."— Babelais, Liv. II. Chap. 6. 

ONE of the first and most necessary things to be ac- 
quired by a resident in a new country is some 
knowledge of its language. Even in the few pages we 
have thus far gone through, terms have frequently oc- 
curred which required explanation ; and without some 
insight into the Cambridge vocabulary, it would be im- 
possible to describe Cambridge life intelligibly, or to 
understand a true description of it. I therefore subjoin 
a list of the principal cant terms and phrases in use, 
translating them, when possible, into equivalent slang of 
our own. 

Goicnsman. — A student of the University. 
Snoh. — A townsman as opposed to a student, or a black- 
guard as opposed to a gentleman ; a loafer generally. 
Cad. — A low fellow, nearly = snob. 
Heading. — Studying. 
A reading man. — A hard student. 

A. rowing man — {oio as in cow). — A hard case, a spreer. 
Shipwreck. — A total failure. 

Mild, ^ Epithets of deprecation, answering nearly to 
Shady, V the phrases, " no great shakes," and " small 
Slow, ) potatoes." 

Fast. — Nearly the French expansif. A fast man is not 
necessarily (like the London fast man) a rowing man, 



40 Five Years in an English University. 

though the two attributes are often combined in the 
same person; he is one who dresses flashily, talks big, 
and spends, or affects to spend, money very freely. 

Seedy. — Not well, out of sorts, done up ; the sort of 
feeling that a reading man has after an examination, 
or a rowing man after a dinner with the Beefsteak 
Club. 

Bumptious. — Conceited, forward, pushing. 

Brick. — A good fellow ; what Americans sometimes 
call a clever fellow. 

To keep in such a place. — To live or have rooms there. 

JIang-ottt. — To treat, to live, to have or possess (a verb 
of all work.) 

Intensives to express the 
most energetic way of 
doing anything. These 
phrases are sometimes in 
very odd contexts. You 
hear men talk of a balloon going up like bricks, and 
rain coming down like a house on fire. 

1^0 end of. — Another intensive of obvious impoi't. They 
had no end of tin, i. e. a great deal of money. He 
is no end of a fool, i. e. the greatest fool possible. 

Bill. — Twaddle, platitude. 

Bot.— Ditto. 

Bosh — Nonsense, trash, c^lvapia. 

Lounge. — A treat, a comfort (an Etonian importation). 

Coach. — A private tutor. 

Team. — The private tutor's pupils. 

Subject. — A particular author, or part of an author, set 
for examination ; or a particular branch of Mathe- 
matics, such as Optics, Hydrostatics, etc. 

Getting up a subject. — Making one's self thoroughly 
master of it. 



Bike bricks, 

Bike a brick or a bean, 

Bike a house on fire 

To the ?i''' 

To the n^l^^ 



Five Years in an English University. 41 

Flooring a paper. — Answering correctly and fully every 
question in it. 

J3ook-work. — All mathematics that can be learned ver- 
batim from books — all that are not problems. 

Cram. — All miscellaneous information about Ancient 
History, Geography, Antiquities, Law, etc. ; all Class- 
ical matter not included under the heads of Trans- 
lation and Composition. 

Composition. — Translating English into Greek or Latin. 

Original Comp>osition. — Writing a Latin Theme, or 
original Latin verses. 

Spirting. — Making an extraordinary effort of mind or 
body for a short time. A boat's crew make a spirt 
when they pull fifty yards with all the strength they 
have left. A reading man makes a spirt when he 
crams twelve hours daily the week before examina- 
tion. 

Commons. — The students' daily rations, either of meat 
in hall, or of bread and butter for breakfast and tea. 

Sizings. — Extra orders in hall. 

Don. — A Fellow, or any College authority . 

Little- Go. — The University Examination in the second 
year, properly called the Previous Examination. 

Trijws.* — Any University Examination for Honors of 

* " The names of the Bachelors who were highest in the list 
(Wranglers and Senior Optimes Baccalaurei quibus sua reservatur 
senioritas Comitiis prioribus, and Junior Optimes, ComiUis poste- 
rioiHbus) were written on slips of paper ; and on the backs of these 
papers, probably with a view of making them less fugitive and 
more entertaining, was given a copy of Latin verses. These verses 
were written by o:ie of the new Bachelors — and the exuberant 
spirits aud enlarged freedom arising from the termination of the 
XJnder-graduate restrictions, often gave to these effusions a char- 
acter of buffoonery and satire (the wi'iter was termed Terrae 
Filius, or Tripos, probably from some circumstance in the mode 



42 Five Years in an English University. 

Questionists, or men who have just taken their 
B. A. (The University Scliolarship Examinations are 
not called Triposes.) 
Posted. — Rejected in a College Examination. 
Plucked. — Rejected in a University Examination. 
Proctors. — The Police Officers of the University. 
Bull-dogs. — Their Lictors, or servants who attend them 

when on duty. 
"Wrangler., Senior Opfime, Junior Optime. — The First, 
Second, and Third Classes of the Mathematical Tri- 
pos. 
/Senior Wrangler. — The head of the First Class in Math- 
ematics. 

Add to these some words previously explained, as 
gyp, sporting-door, questionist, etc., and a number of Lon- 
don slang words with which Punch has made us familiar, 
e. g. lus?i and grub, for meat and drink ; iveed, for cigar ; 
tin, for money ; governor, for father ; sold, for exceeding- 
ly disappointed or deceived ; and a few pure Greek 
words, of which the most generally used are vovg (sense) 
and KvSog (credit, reputation), and you have a tolerable 
idea of the Cambridge vocabulary — chiefly confined to 
the Undergraduates (except in the technicals like proctor, 

of Ms making his appearance and delivering his verses), and took 
considerable liberties. On some occasions vre find that these "went 
BO far as to incur the censure of the authorities. Even now the 
Tripos' verses often aim at satire and humor. [It is customary 
to have one serious and one humorous copy of verses.] The writer 
does not now appear in person, but the Tripos paper, the list of 
honors with its verses, still comes forth at its due sea.son, and the 
list itself has now taken the name of the Tripos. This being the 
case with the list of Mathematical honors, the same name has 
been extended to the list of Classical honors, though unaccompa- 
nied by its classical verses." — Whewell on Cambridge Education 
•preface io Part 3. 



Five Years in an English University . 43 

wrangler, etc.), but understood and acknowledged by the 
stiffest Dons. Nor must it by any means be supposed 
the peculiar property of the rowing-men ; on the con- 
trary, the jargon of the reading-men is less intelligible 
to the uninitiated than that of any other class — for they 
piece out their conversation with Greek words, just as 
Bome would-be fashionables do theirs with French, until 
the " Babylonish dialect " becomes nearly as bad as that 
of the student in Rabelais, and it takes a pretty good 
Greek scholar to understand their English. Thus I have 
heard propemp familiarly used as escort, and seen in a 
letter ackmaze for to be at the highest point. And this 
is not altogether aflectation ; to many of these men the 
strange words they use have become more familiar and 
convenient than the corresponding English ones, espe- 
cially technical terms of the Greek philosophical writers 
(such as \6LUT7]q^ kKiarijiiri, Idea ), just as those who havo 
lived much in France often find it more convenient to 
express certain ideas by French words than English 
ones. 



44 Five Years in an English University. 



AlSr AMERICAN" STUDENT'S FIRST IMPRESSION" AT CAM- 
BRIDGE AND ON CAMBRIDGE. 

'''S.v 61 ov6e aSvvaro^, wf Aaice6ai.fx6viog, eiTtelv. — 

Thtjctdides, Book it. 

THERE are not a few persons in this community of 
ours, some of them not deficient in intelligence, nor 
entirely destitute of the spirit of benevolence, who think 
it a most desirable and praiseworthy thing to stir up all 
the mischief they can between England and America. 
These well-disposed individuals doubtless have their re- 
ward, which I never felt inclined to envy them ; my own 
ideas always urging me to a directly opposite course, 
either from some mental blindness which kept me be- 
hind the progressive democracy of this advancing age, 
or because I never intended to put myself in a position 
which would oblige me to propitiate or toady Irishmen 
or slaveholders. Ever since my early boyhood it had 
been a leading idea with me that the great branches of 
the Anglo-Saxon family, distinguished by their language, 
by their ethical principles, by their judiciously liberal 
political institutions, from the rest of the world, ought 
to work harmoniously together ; that a great deal of the 
bad feeling between them arose from ignorance, and was 
therefore removable by mere contact and information ; 
and that a citizen of either country who had the oppor- 
tunity, was doing his duty much better by endeavoring 
to promote a mutual knowledge of each other between 
the two peoples, and thus dispel many antipathies having 
more a hypothetical than a real foundation, than by la- 
boi'iDg to revive and foster old germs of animosity 



JF'lve ITears in an English University. 45 

which time and the natural course of events were ah-eady 
doing so much to kill. In wishing, therefore, to stand 
well and make a good impression at Cambridge from 
my first entry, I was actuated not merely by a desire af- 
ter the promotion of my own Kvdor (to speak Cantabrig- 
ically), but by an honest wish to represent my country 
well, and make the name of American respectable to 
many young Englishmen Avho had no personal experi- 
ence of it. Indeed it was partly on this account that I 
had put myself in a position so disproportionate to my 
financial resources as that of a Trinity Fellow- Com- 
moner. 

I Avas well aware that in this endeavor there was con- 
siderable up-hill work to do, and sufficient discourage- 
ment to encounter ; that as the American admirer of 
England is sure to get some hard knocks at home, so the 
American in England is apt to be looked at in a false 
light by the individuals of a nation to which he is well 
disposed. 

Mere mistakes of ignorance I was always prepared 
for ; and it is but justice to my English acquaintances to 
say that they were generally as glad to have such mis- 
takes corrected as I was eager to correct them. This 
charge of ignorance is, as we all know, sometimes de- 
nied and sometimes slighted by Englishmen ; but it is 
rather understating the case to say that the majority of 
English gentlemen know less than they should about 
the condition and institutions of a people so nearly re- 
lated to them, and whose political and social movements 
they might study to so much advantage in reference to 
their own country. In our past history, short as it is, 
we would hardly expect them to be well up, coming into 
rivalry as it does with the more universally exciting 
events that took place in Europe contemporaneously ; 



46 Five Years in an English University. 

and other reasons may combine with national pride for 
making Waterloo a more familiar name to them than 
New Orleans ; but surely an English gentleman who has 
attained his majority, might be expected to know that 
we have two Houses of Congress and that New York 
is not a slave State. 

The old joke of presuming that a New Yorker or 
New Englander knows any man who may have gone out 
to Canada, St. Louis, or Texas, is really no joke at all, 
but a very common occurrence, which every American 
who has travelled or resided much in England must have 
verified for himself Sometimes I have remarked in- 
stances where it might well be suspected that much of 
this ignorance was put on, and that — just as our public 
men assent to the romancings of Irish " sympathizers," 
and wonder how England can be so blind and unjust as 
not to grant repeal, knowing better all the time — the 
Tory journalist when he asserted that bread was actu- 
ally dearer at times in American than in English cities, 
because he had seen a New York shilling loaf which was 
not larger than a London tenpenny one, perfectly under- 
stood the relative value of the New York and English 
shillings. But in many cases no such explanation was 
admissible. The Liberals whom I met did not seem very 
much better acquainted with us than the Tories, but they 
were more anxious for information and better disposed 
towards us. The general bearing of such Tories, and 
that not merely young men or Dons at Cambridge, but 
Londoners, was very civil to me personally, but mingled 
with a sort of implied pity for my belonging to a coun- 
try where a gentleman was out of place, could not get 
his deserts, and must necessarily be Kaii6vovQ tu 6^/j,u. 
For with the English Tory I found it a fixed idea that all 
our " Upper Ten " are bullied and plundered by the mob, 



Five Years m an English University. 47 

just as it is with the American Radical, that all the mass 
of the English people are miserable serfs, and all the 
landed aristocracy bloated tyrants. With men of this 
sort I took a very summary course ; neither more nor 
less than the ordinary American dodge of stoutly assert- 
ing and imperturbably maintaining our national superi- 
ority in morals and intelligence. Take the following as 
a specimen. -B. at the Dean's table, enjoying the bene- 
ficial provender thereon. Enter (rather late) Strafford 
Poj^e, a young aristocrat with £30,000 a-year, and a large 
assortment of the most antediluvian politics. P. has 
heard that B. is an American, and takes a seat alongside 
him half intentionally ; -S. knows P. by reputation as 
one of the few reading Fellow-Commoners. They 
strike up a conversation in the pauses of the dinner ; by 
and by the discourse takes a political turn. 

P. A republic may be very well when we can make 
all men angels, but till then it can't answer. 

J3. Why, we make one answer very well, though our 
men don't pretend to be angels, and only some of our 
women. 

P. Answer very well! You have no law — or, at 
least, no means of enforcing the law, you know. [An 
Englishman always appends " you know " to the very 
thing you do7iH know, and wont admit.] 

-S. Oh, that's altogether a mistake on your part. I 
can see how it arises very naturally. You look around 
on your own lower orders and think how unfit they 
would be for political power ; and so they are now, no 
doubt. But wait till virtue and intelligence are diftused 
among your people as generally as they are among ours, 
and then you will be ripe for a republic and will have it 
too. 

Whether I believed in this magnificent formula of 



48 Five Years in an English University. 

our superiority in virtue and intelligence to the rest of 
the world or not, it answered its purpose at the time 
completely, utterly putting down the Englishman, who 
was so upset with indignation at my quiet assumption, 
that he could not deliver himself of an articulate reply. 
Some of the Fast men among the Fellow-Common- 
ers and their toadies, whose love of deviltry was much 
greater than their wit, as soon as they heard of my na- 
tionality, determined to have some fun out of me ; and 
accordingly invited me to various entertainments with 
the laudable intention of making me drunk and other- 
wise putting me through my paces. But these fellows 
gave me very little trouble ; I may say it without vanity, 
for getting the better of them in any thing which" re- 
quired the smallest exertion of vovq was like being first 
in a donkey-race. In all repartees and wordy warfare I 
gave them quite as much as they could manage. As to 
the fluids, I had the fortunate or unfortunate natural 
gift, not unimproved by practice, of a rather strong 
head, and could imbibe a pretty good share, even of the 
villanously doctored Cambridge wines, without disturb- 
ing my bodily or mental equilibrium; so that the men 
who had promised themselves the treat of seemg a drunk- 
en Yankee, only made themselves very comfortably 
tipsy in their attempts to intoxicate me, especially as I 
was too prudent to rely entirely on my natural capaci- 
ties without having recourse to an occasional artifice. 
On one special occasion, I recollect there was a dead set 
made at me, almost every one present out of fourteen 
diners challenged me to drink repeatedly. I stuck to 
the Hock — or, more critically speaking, to something in 
a green bottle — the bottle and glass were colored, that 
was the main point ; the colored glass enabled me to fill 
and empty, in appearance, many times, while in reality 



Five Years i?i an English TTmversity. 49 

I only povirecl out and tasted a few drops ; the result of 
which stratagem was that two or three of the party put 
themselves completely hors de comhat, and were deeply 
impressed with a sense of my capacity. 

Never but once did I come near getting into any 
difficulty on account of my country. One night after a 
dinner party, a Fellow-Commoner of older standing, 
who was leaving at the same time, carried me off to 
" show me another set." This other set consisted chief- 
ly of the Beefsteak Club, some six or eight men who 
used to dine together once a week for the purpose of 
consuming incredible quantities of an extraordinary 
liquor called Cambridge Port, and having performed 
their usual duties, were then in what the Irish call a 
very high state of civilization. Among their guests 
was to my horror and disgust, a Fellow of the college, 
just about to take orders. Before I could find a decent 
pretext for evaporating, one of the most " civilized " un- 
dertook to banter me on my non-appearance in the 
the classic regions of Barnwell. It is not very difficult 
to quiz a drunken man, and I showed this one up so 
completely before his friends, that he became quite fu- 
rious, and proceeded to make some very personal re- 
marks upon " Yankees," which provoked me to give him 
a rather dogmatic extempore lecture on the requisites of 
a gentleman and the duties of hospitality and courtesy. 
He of the Beefsteak, comprehending dimly what I said, 
and being at a loss for words, made, by way of answer, 
a belligerent demonstration, to which, in self-defence, I 
was compelled to make signs of responding. But be- 
fore hostilities were actually interchanged, several men 
seized hold of each of us, and the scene which ensued 
was sufficiently ludicrous. I had from the first been 
more amused at, than angry with, the obstreperous in- 
3 



50 Five Years in an English University. 

dividual, and had not the slightest idea of fighting him 
unless he actually struck me ; besides I was perfectly 
Bober, which could not be said of any other person in 
the room except the old stager who brought me, so that 
I could observe quite coolly what was going on. One 
very well disposed and very tipsy man, who was great 
upon boats but very slow at books, endeavored to pacify 
me by relating the results of his own experience with 
moral deductions ; but in four several attempts could get 
no farther than to inform me that he had been " f-five 
years in this u-university." Another, who evidently gave 
me credit for the most belligerent propensities, was ex- 
pounding to me the laws of the University, which for- 
bade duelling under penalty of expulsion for all con- 
cerned, and insisting that therefore it was impossible to 
call a man out, etc. Meanwhile the other party was 
surrounded by his group of friends, who at length suc- 
ceeded in persuading him that he had been guilty of a 
great breach of decorum, so that in the end he began 
ajDologizing to me, and continued his excuses till they 
were almost as great a bore as the original offence. 
This incident did not fail to be repeated; and partly 
from the muddled condition of those who witnessed 
and assisted at it, partly from the inaccuracy of gossip, 
from which even Englishmen are not entirely exempt, 
it was repeated with various exaggerations, and finally 
settled into the form that I had drawn a knife on the 
asperser of my countrymen, and threatened him with 
instant annihilation. 

Some trifling New York accomplishments, from which 
no one in my position could have expected much a 
priori, now came into play, and tended to give me con- 
sequence. It may seem ridiculous that a knowledge of 
particular meats and drinks, or the possession of a stock 



Five Years in an English Univei'sity. 51 

of well-cut trowsers, should have any effect on a man's 
position in a community professedly literary ; but it was 
these trifles more than any thing else that tended to 
raise the opinion which the younger portion of my new 
associates formed of me, and through me of the country. 
One of the first things which surprises a young man 
from our Atlantic cities on visiting England, is the in- 
feriority of the English in certain refinements of civili- 
zation, in which he was prepared to find them infinitely 
superior. It is with no small astonishment that the 
New Yorker, or Philadelphian, or Bostonian finds it al- 
most impossible to get clothes made to fit in England ; * 
nor, while doing justice to the mutton and ale of the 
country, is he less disappointed to find that there is no 
variety — the eternal steak, chops and potatoes, and big 
joints everywhere ; and that the national taste in wine 
is of the most barbarous description, most of the fluid 
consumed under that honorable appellation being half 
brandy. Moreover, having usually mixed more with 
Frenchmen, Spaniards, and Germans, and speaking what 
he knows of their languages more fluently than the 
Englishman of the same age, he has a decided advantage 
when any native of the Continent happens to be present, 
or when Continental matters are under discussion. After 
recovering from the first surprise of these facts, I cher- 
ished them as great facts, which enabled me to show my 
superiority to the " benighted British " when they least 
expected it ; and more than one youth who thought to 
astonish the American savage by a display of the myste- 

[* This -was literally true at tlie time. Since then, English, 
tailors have found it -worth their while to fit the American type, 
and the inferiority of the American goods and workmanship, pro- 
duced and fostered by our absurd tariff, has made the name of 
Poole a household word to the American gentleman. ] 



52 Fwe Years in an English University. 

ries of civilization, was rather astonished in his turn at 
my summary condemnation of English tailors and cooks, 
and my ostentatious learning in French wines and dishes. 
It may be supposed that the Fellows were not moved 
by any vanities of habiliment, but their epicurean and 
convivial tendencies led them to respect any hints in the 
matter of edibles and potables. A more intellectual 
way of becoming known was in the University debat- 
ing society. I had, more by practice than natural ability 
or inclination, acquired that knack of speech-making 
which about every third graduate of an American col- 
lege possesses, and accordingly, at the first meeting of 
the Union after our admission, extemporized an argu- 
ment on the Chinese war. In this way, however, it was 
not possible to gain much renown, the debating society 
being a very third-rate affair : mere oratory is about as 
much valued with the English as mere scholarship is with 
us. But in the legitimate business of the place I was not 
without resources. In accordance with the impulse first 
given by Newton, strengthened by other great scien- 
tific names, and only partially counteracted by such 
scholars as Bentley and Porson, Mathematics are made a 
necessary foundation for every thing at Cambridge ; and 
the only road to Classical honors and their accompany- 
ing emoluments in the University, and virtually in all the 
Colleges, except Trinity, is through Mathematical, all 
candidates for the Classical Tripos being obliged as a 
preliminary to obtain a place in that Mathematical list 
which is headed by the Senior Wrangler and tailed by 
the Wooden Spoon. * This preliminary passing in sci- 
ence being a terrible bore to the Classical men, and fail- 

* See the chapter on Recent Changes for an alteration in this 
respect. 



Five Years in an JEnglish University. 53 

ure in it sometimes shipwrecking them for life, they con- 
sider themselves, and claim to be considered by others, 
victims and martyrs. Now I hated Mathematics as cor- 
dially as any Cantab of my contemporaries, and with 
more experience, if not more knowledge of the subject, 
while I really was fond of Classics ; so as naturally to 
fall into the ranks of the aggrieved and complaining mi- 
nority (there are about three Mathematical students for 
one Classical), and this helped to give me a position 
among those with whom I sympathized. In composi- 
tion and cram I was yet untried, and the translations in 
lecture-room were not difficult to acquit one's self on 
respectably. Finally, whatever I did, derived an addi- 
tional lustre from the blue and silver gown, the Fellow- 
Commoners generally being more disposed to rowing 
than reading, and not particularly distinguished in any 
way for their intellectual performances. Indeed they 
are popularly denominated " empty bottles," the first 
word of the appellation being an adjective, though were 
it taken as a verb there would be no untruth in it. 

And now, what impression did my new associates 
m.ake upon me ? With those of my own standing, and 
nearly my own age, I was much disappointed and some- 
what disgusted. These youths of eighteen or nineteen 
seemed precocious enough in vice, but the veriest school- 
boys in every thing else — making a noise and throwing 
about pens and paper in the lecture-room, waxing up- 
roarious at night over the worst liquors, working like 
schoolboys when they did work, translating with awk- 
ward literalness, and shifting most of the burden on the 
Lecturer when it came to Mathematics. In every thing 
but physical development and vicious tendency they 
seemed years behind American students considerably 
their juniors — except that some — and only some of 



54 Five Years in an Eiiglish ZPniversity. 

them — executed beautiful Latin verses with great fa- 
cility. 

In some respects, my generalization was very imper- 
fect and incorrect. It had been my mishap, partly from 
my position as Fellow-Commoner, partly from local ac- 
cidents, to fall among a bad set of Undergraduates. 
Had I, in the situation of my rooms, or of my seat at 
lectures, lighted among some of the best Eton, or Rug- 
by, or Shrewsbury men, my first impressions would have 
been considerably modified. But in one important point 
they were correct. The English student of eighteen is 
more a boy than the American of the same age, in man- 
ners, in self-possession, in world-knowledge, in general 
knowledge of literature even. How far this precocity 
on our part is an advantage, is a question of which we 
shall have more to say hereafter. At that time, deem- 
ing it an unmixed benefit, I was not a little proud of it, 
individually and nationally. 

But while not particularly pleased with those of my 
own immediate standing, I took great delight in the so- 
ciety of another class — the Bachelor Scholars. These 
men, averaging about twenty-three years of age, the best 
Classics and Mathematicians of their years, were reading 
for Fellowships — that is, they were putting themselves 
through the best existing course of intellectual training 
and polish. Most of them well grounded in the grammar, 
and copiously learned in the vocabularies of the Ancient 
tongues, so that they read Latin and Greek more readily 
than one usually does French, were now working over 
their Classics to the utmost pitch of accuracy, branching 
them out into philological discussions, enriching them 
with historic lore, and illustrating them from the litera- 
ture of other languages. Some were carrying up the 
results of their mathematical drilling to the highest walks 



Five Years in an English University. 55 

of pure science ; and all were imbuing themselves with 
the sufficiently wide course of reading included within 
the limits of the metaphysical, or, as it is also and more 
correctly called, the general paper — a course Avhich em- 
braces Logic, Political Economy, Historical and Transcen- 
dental Metaphysics, and Ethics. Unsuccessful candidates, 
and others who wanted to laugh at the papers, used to 
call them examinations on IVheioeWs books; which, had 
it been strictly true, was saying a good deal for them, 
since the Professor of Casuistry has written no small 
quantity about various subjects. 

The classical sympathies and mental symmetry of 
these men could be fully perceived only by a student 
like themselves, but any person not grossly illiterate 
must have been struck by their acquaintance with the 
literature of their own tongue — not the ephemeral and 
superficial part of it, but the classics of the language. 
For their relaxation, instead of cheap novels, political 
diatribes, or newspaper scandals, they read the old Di'a- 
matists, and the standard Essayists of bye-gone days. 
They formed Shakspeare clubs, to read and study the 
Dramatist — not exactly like those " Shakspearian Read- 
ings," in which the actor or actress is the chief attrac- 
tion. The criticism displayed in their conversation was 
much superior to the majority of what is lauded when 
read in print ; and when they talked, it was not decla- 
mation, or pamphleteering, or sophistical exhibition, aim- 
ing only to gain the victory and produce an effect on the 
listeners, but a candid communication of knowledge and 
opinion, and a search after truth. The regular and hearty 
exercise they took every day, maintaining their bodies in 
vigorous health, kept their minds elastic, and at the same 
time drove out all morose ness and peevishness, rendering 
them eminently genial. And, while generally in moder- 



56 Five years in an English University. 

ate circumstances, and living on (for England) a very 
moderate income, they had a taste for some of the en- 
joyments of art, which they gratified in their temper- 
ate, honest way. Without the means of luxury, they 
preserved a gentlemanly sestheticism. Their dress was 
simple, not to say economical, but its cleanliness and 
freedom from pretension dispelled any disposition to 
criticise it. They could not afford valuable paintings, 
but their rooms were hung with choice engravings, the 
accumulations of their undergraduate years, a few pounds' 
worth at a time. They lived habitually on plain and 
substantial provender ; but on festive days, when an old 
friend turned up unexpectedly, or an examination result- 
ed triumphantly, or on any other occasion that provoked 
revelry, they enjoyed a recherche dinner, and a bottle or 
two of good wine as much as the most scientific epicure. 
They had not the command of an opera, or indeed any 
place of public amusement, and for a great part of the 
year were confined to the somewhat monotonous coun- 
try about Cambridge, but for a month or six weeks in 
the " Long " they rambled off to see the sights of Paris, 
or the galleries of Belgium, or the natural beauties of 
the Rhine and Switzerland, and came back far more de- 
lighted with their brief expedition than can be conceived 
by those who make it their business to worry from place 
to place in pursuit of diversion and excitement. 

The great change and improvement effected by a few 
years of collegiate life was to me one of the first prob- 
lems connected with the English Universities. Home 
experience had not led me to expect such a start between 
the ages of twenty-two and twenty-five. My own pur- 
suit of classical study had been founded more on predi- 
lection for it than on a very strong conviction of its gen- 
eral utility; but now I began to consider whether there 



Five Tears in an English University. 57 

might not be in it more of this practical quality than I 
had ever yet given it credit for. 

As to the Fellows, some of the younger men dis- 
played much the same characteristics with the Bache- 
lors ; others of the older stock seemed to have grown 
somewhat rusty in their retirement ; which led me to 
suspect, what indeed is a common opinion among the 
Fellows themselves, that the University is an excellent 
place for the regular seven years, or perhaps a few more, 
but after that time it is better for a man to leave it, un- 
less he is strictly devoted to some purely scientific pur- 
suit. And in this lies the value of the Trinity Fellow- 
ships, that being tenable (in the case of laymen) for 
seven years more {not involving residence) they afford 
a young man support until he can get fairly started in his 
profession, while the three years he has spent in reading 
for the Fellowship, themselves directly contribute to his 
getting the start by the regular and powerful mental 
training they put him through. But unfortunately many 
not otherwise so inclined are tempted into orders to 
keep their Fellowships. 



58 Five Years in an English University. 



FRESHMAlSr TEMPTATIONS AKD EXPERIElSrCES. TOETISM 
OP THE YOUNG MEK, AND IDEAS SUGGESTED BY IT. 

EIsTGLISH boys remain at school until the term hoy 
is hardly applicable to them (according to our no- 
tions, at least), and the academy-prospectus designation 
of " young gentlemen " becomes more appropriate ; 
that is to say, till eighteen or nineteen years of age. It 
is impossible that for youths of that stature (and they 
grow faster in England than in our Northern States) the 
school discipline should not be relaxed a little from its 
extreme strictness ; still, even for them it is pretty se- 
vere. From this state of close restraint they are sud- 
denly thrown into a condition of almost entire freedom, 
in which they can go where they like, order what they 
please, and do almost any thing they please — only about 
two hours and a half of their daily time being demanded 
by the college authorities, and from midnight till seven 
in the morning, the only period when they must be in 
their rooms or lodging-houses. Tradesmen of all sorts 
give them unlimited tick ; they can fill their wardrobes 
with clothes, and their cellars with wines ; they may 
gratify the " small vice " of smoking, and any greater 
vices they are so unfortunate as to have, provided they 
do not openly outrage public decorum. 

Having had a little more worldly experience than 
most Cambridge Freshmen, and being moreover forti- 
fied by a somewhat more refined taste (occasionally a 
valuable auxiliary to a man's principles) I kept clear 



Five ITears in aii English University. 59 

without difficulty of all such boyish excesses. But there 
were seductions and dangers in the life I was leading, 
all the more perilous for not being appreciated by my- 
self or others, and while passing for a terribly hard read- 
ing man, and a " Sim " * of the straightest kind with the 
" empty bottles," and enjoying a very exemplary char- 
acter with most of the Dons, I was last lapsing into a 
state of literary sensualism. The life about me was in 
many respects my ideal of wordly enjoyment. The 
studies which I preferred in just sufficient quantity to 
amuse and excite without fatiguing me, abundance of 
good cheer for the body, pleasant literary companions, 
some reputation for talent obtained by very little exer- 
tion, and a reputation for goodness obtained by no ex- 
ertion — every thing combined to put me on good terms 
with myself I became lazy, and addicted to sleeping 
over morning chapels, and consuming much claret after 
dinner ; I also wasted many hours at billiards, indulging 
myself in this fascinating game as a compensation for 
having denied myself a horse on economical grounds. 
When a young man becomes fairly engaged at billiards, 
he seldom does any thing else very regularly. 

The life of a Freshman, after he has become fairly 
settled in his quarters, is not a very diversified one. 
The chief incidents of a University man's life are his 
examinations ; and of these the Freshman has none worth 
mentioning until the end of his third term (unless he be 
a clergyman's son, and thereby entitled to go in for the 
Bell scholarship). One or two matters occurred during 
my first winter, that were of interest as giving me an 
insight into the political feeling of the University. To- 
wards the end of our first term there was an election 

* /, e., Simeonite, a nickname given by rowing men to Evan- 
gelicala, and to all religious men, or even quiet men generally. 



60 Five Years in an English University. 

for High Steward, the officer who represents the Uni- 
versity in the House of Lords. Lord Lyndhurst was 
the Tory candidate; his abiUties and reputation, and 
the conservative majority among the members of the 
University, afforded httle prospect of any successful op- 
position being offered to him. It haj)pened, however, 
that a few years before, a young Whig nobleman (Lord 
Lyttleton) had come out head of the Classical Tripos, 
and being, though a Whig, a strong High-Churchman, 
and of unimpeachable character, it was thought that the 
High Church, Whig, and moral interests together might 
enable him to beat Lyndhurst. But the Tories stood by 
their man — High Church, Low Church, or no church, 
moral or no moral — and elected him by a vote of all 
but two to one. The voters in these elections are all 
the M. A.'s who keep their names on the Boards (of their 
respective colleges) by paying an annual sum. While 
the voting went on in the body of the Senate House, 
the galleries were filled with undergraduates, who gave 
cheers and groans for a great many things and people, 
and hissed unmercifully the prominent voters for Lyttle- 
ton. About this time I first had full personal experi- 
ence of the uncharitableness shown by these youthful 
Tories towards their liberal countrymen. Many of 
them, who seemed to have taken up the Romish idea 
that a blind devotion to their church establishment would 
atone for any irregularity in their lives, looked upon a 
Liberal as no better than a Dissenter, and a Dissenter as 
only one step above an Atheist. A professed Radical 
was regarded as a strange monster, always to be sus- 
pected. Though not generally prone to gossip, they 
could not help inventing and repeating absurd calumnies 
about him. It was told me of a man whom I knew 
slightly, that he had once said, when the subject of 



Five Years in an English University. Gl 

Church extension was under discussion, " he would as 
soon subscribe for a brothel in every parish as a church." 
I very much doubted his ever having uttered so atro- 
cious a sentiment, and was not surprised to learn acci- 
dentally, some time after, that this was a standing bit of 
scandal which had been attributed to all the presidents 
of the Liberal club successively for many years. 

I could not help contrasting the Jacobitism (Toryism 
is not a strong enough term for it) then prevailing among 
the students, not only with the political character of the 
University in other days, but with the general republican 
tendencies of young men of fashion under the Tory j^re- 
mier, William Pitt. I was also led to compare it with 
the strong conservative spirit of our own collegians, and 
the Democratic longings of the German students ; and 
was led to the somewhat hasty generalization that the 
majority of highly educated young men under any gov- 
ernment are opposed to the spirit in which that govern- 
ment is administered. Hasty and imperfect as the con- 
clusion is, it certainly does hold good of many countries, 
and is a fact worthy consideration. Perhaps we may 
thus account for the phenomenon. Barbarous and igno- 
rant nations magnify themselves and their country above 
all the rest of the world, and regard foreigners with 
contempt or aversion. So do, though in a less degree, 
the ignorant classes of all countries. The first effect of 
education is to open a man's eyes, and let him see his 
nakedness. He sees the defects in the government of 
his country ; he exaggerates them with the ardor of 
youth, and takes that side which promises to remedy 
them, without reflecting at what cost the remedy may 
have to be purchased. Be the reason of the thing what 
it may, I am not disposed to view the thing itself as al- 
together worthy of lamentation ; nor whatever harm it 



62 Five Years in an English University. 

may sometimes do the individual, do I regard it as mis- 
chievous to the community, but rather the contrary. 
The position has been well maintained by at least two 
able philosophical writers writers of the present day, * 
that complete consistency is not to be desired in a state ; 
that for the sake of counteracting the inherent evils of 
every form of government, the prestige is often in favor 
of arrangements which do not follow from the general 
principle of the government. And it is clear that such 
counterbalancing measures will never be proposed by 
those who carry out to extremes the fundamental prin- 
ciples of the government, whether democratic or aris- 
tocratic. The existence of a minority holding certain 
opinions may be very desirable when the conversion of 
that minority into a majority would be a thing especially 
to be deprecated. Nor does it even follow that such a 
minority will carry out their ideas so seriously as to aim 
at a radical change in the government. The founders 
and supporters of the Edinburgh Review were theoret- 
ical admirers of a republic, but when the English Whigs 
get into oflSce they do not endeavor to subvert the mon- 
archy. 

To return from this digression, the next thing that 
particulai'ly struck me was what may be called to an 
outside observer or non-studious resident, the great fea- 
ture of English University life — the boat races, which 
begin toward the close of the second term, and continue 
all through the third. Boating is the University amuse- 
ment par excellence. The expense of it is small, and 
the Cam so convenient — just behind the Colleges. At 
all times of the year you may see solitary men in wher- 
ries, taking their shilling's or two shillings' worth of 

* Mill a'puct Lewis, Influence of Authority in Matters of OpiU' 
ion, p. 237. 



Five Years in an English University. 63 

sculling up and down ; while the boat-clubs for the for- 
mal Spring races are a convenient outlet for College em- 
ulation, the top of the river being an honor contended 
for nearly as strenuously as the Senior Wranglership or 
the head of the Classical Tripos — and not always by a 
very diiFerent set of persons. Will the reader accom- 
pany me to my first race, and see it just as I saw it. ? 



64 Five Years in an English University. 



THE BOAT KACE.* 

" Eow, brothers, row ! " — Scott, Moore, and several otliers. 
" Go it, ye cripples ! "— H. "Walkeb, Esq. 

' ' "T^ EAR B. — To-day the first race of the season 
-L^ comes off. Be at my room not later than two, 
and I will show you the way. D. I. H." 

Such were the contents of a curiously twisted note 
which I found upon my breakfast table one morning on 
returning from lectures. The writer was a Bachelor 
Fellow of Trinity, who knew more about America and 
Americans than any other Cantab then resident. Poor 
fellow ! he had rather too much intercourse with us for 
his own profit : when the U. S. Bank blew up, " Dunny 
ay was in for some £1,000, or it may have been more — 
he never would own how much. 

But I am digressing. There was not much time to 
lose, for it wanted but a quarter of two, and " Dunny " 
was a punctual man. So, arming myself with an um- 
brella (it has a habit of raining at least once a day in 
England,) I sallied forth to witness for the first time 
that exciting spectacle, a University boat-race. 

* This chapter -was originally published as an article in tlie 
Yale Literary Magazine, during the year 1841. In 1847 it was 
republished in a city magazine ; on which occasion, one of our 
wise newspaper critics discovered that it was copied from an arti- 
cle in Blackwood, written about two years after mine was ia 
print. 



Five Years in an JEnglish University. 65 

There is one great point where the English have the 
advantage over us : they understand how to take care 
of their health. Not that the Cantabs are either " tee- 
totalers '' or " Grahamites." There is indeed a ti'adi- 
tion that a '' total-abstinence " society was once estab- 
lished in Cambridge, and that in three years it increased 
to two members ; whether it be still in existence, how- 
ever, I have not been able to learn. But every Cantab 
takes his two hours' exercise per diem, by walking, rid- 
ing, rowing, fencing, gymnastics, etc. How many col- 
leges are there here where the students average one 
hour a day real exercise ? Our Columbia boys roll ten- 
pins and play billiards, which is better than nothing, 
but very inferior to out-door amusements. In New 
England (at least it was so ten years ago at Yale), the 
last thing thought of is exercise — even the mild walks 
which are dignified with the name of exercise there, how 
unlike the Cantab's constitutional of eight miles in less 
than two hours ! If there is a fifteen days' prayer-meet- 
ing, or a thousand-and-first new debating-society, or a 
lecture on some specialite which may be of use to half-a- 
dozen out of the hundred or two who attend it, over 
goes the exercise at once. And the consequence is — 
what ? There is not a finer-looking set of young men 
in the world than the Cantabs, and as to their health — 
why, one hundred and thirty Freshmen enter at Trinity 
every year, and it is no uufrequent occurrence that, 
whatever loss they sustain from other causes, (accidents 
will happen in the best regulated colleges), death takes 
away none of them during the three years and a half 
which comprise their undergraduate course. Whose 
memory can match this at Yale ? If our youngsters 
exercised their legs and arms just four times as much 
as they do, and their tongues ten times as little, it would 



66 Five Y'ears in an English University. 

"be the better for them every way. But I am not now 
reading a lectm-e on dietetics, so let ns come back to the 
shores of the Cam. 

Classic Camus being a very narrow stream, scarcely 
wider than a canal, it is impossible for the boats to race 
side by side. The following expedient has therefore 
been adopted : they are drawn up in a line, two lengths 
between each, and the contest consists in each boat en- 
deavoring to touch with its bow the stern of the one 
before it, which operation is called hicmping ; and at the 
next race the himxper takes the place of the humped. 
The distance rowed is about one mile and three-quar- 
ters. To be " head of the river " is a distinction much 
coveted and hard fought for. Each college has at least 
one boat club ; in Trinity there are three, with three or 
four crews in each. About nine races take place in the 
season ; they are of great use in preparing the men for 
the annual match with Oxford.* 

The Caius f boat at this time was head of the river, 
the First Trinity second, the Third Trinity the third. 
Some hard pulling was expected among the leading 
boats. The Third Trinity were confident of bumping 
the first. 

While you have been reading the above, you may 

suppose H and myself viewing the scene of action, 

distant about two miles from the town. The time of 

[* In my time tlie Cantabs were generally victorions, and had 
some claim to be the best smooth water oars in England, that 
is to say, in the world. Since then, there have been some ups and 
downs. The Oxonians have won nine years runniag, and the 
Cantabs wiped out a few marks from the long score against them] 
f Familiarly pronounced Keys. There is an old joke about a 
man named Bunch having belonged to this college, and being 
called accordingly, " Bunch of Keys." 



Five Years in an English University. 67 

starting is at hand, and gownsmen {not in their gqwns) 
are hurrying by us on all sides, some mounted, but the 
greater part on foot ; some following the beaten track, 
others taking a shorter cut over fields and fences. Here 
comes a sporting character, riding his own " hanimal." 
See with what a knowing look man and horse approach 
the fence. Hip ! he is over, and six inches to spare. 
Ah ! here is another, who, though not very well mount- 
ed, must needs show his dexterity at the same place. 
Not quite, stranger ! The horse has his fore feet clean 
over, but it by no means follows that he will do the same 
with the hind ones. Crack ! he has hit the top bar and 
carried it oif several yards. Not so bad after all. He 
m.ight not do it again so neatly. 

Bang ! there goes the first gun ! In three minutes 
there will be another, in two more a third, and then for 
it ! What are those men laughing at ? Ah ! I see ; no 
wonder. An ambitious character on a sorry hack has 
driven his Rozinante at a ditch. No you don't, mister ! 
The horse, wiser than his rider, refuses the leap, with a 
sagacious shake of the head. He is hauled back for a 
fresh start, and the whip ajDplied abundantly. Same 
result as before. The tittering of the passers-by reaches 
our hero's ears : he waxes wrathful, and discharges on 
the reluctant steed a jjerfect hurricane of blows ! 

Spla-ash ! with the utmost composure imaginable the 
old horse has stepped into the ditch, say three feet deep, 
casting his rider headlong by the abrupt descent. Serves 
you right, my friend. We can't stop to see what be- 
comes of you, for there goes the second gun, and we 
must make haste to secure a good place. Well, here 
we are, at the upper end of '-the Long Reach." We 
can just spy the head of the first boat below yonder 
corner. As the hardest pulling always begins here we 



68 Five Years in an English University. 

shall have a good view of it. Ha ! do you see that pull ? 
The eight stalwart Caius men bent to their oars the mo- 
ment the last gun flashed, and its report reaches our ears 
as they are stooping to the second stroke. Here they 
come at a raj)id rate, and with them the whole cortege 
of horse and foot, running along the hank and cheering 
the boats. Take care of yourselves ! A young colt, 
frightened by the uproar, is exhibiting some very decid- 
ed capers, to the manifest discomposure of those around 
him, and finishes by jumping into the river, fortunately 
not near enough to the boats to disturb them. His 
rider maintains his seat throughout, and they emerge 
somewhat wet, but otherwise apparently uninjured. 
And whether they were or not, no one cared, for the 
leading boats were now rounding the upper corner of 
the Reach. On they come at a good rate, the Caius 
men taking it quite easy, and pulling leisurely, as much 
as to say, " what's the use of hurrying ourselves for 
them f " Indeed the First Trinity had lost half a length, 
and were therefore in some danger themselves. 

Caius passed me, for I was far from a good runner ; 
so did the two Trinity boats and " Maudlin " (Magdalen), 
when suddenly there uprose a mighty shout, " Trinity ! 
Trinity ! Go it. Trinity !" and there was First Trinity 
shooting forward with a magical impulse, away, away 
from the threatening Third Trinity, and up, up, up to 
the head boat. The poor Caius crew looked like men 
in a nightmare : they pulled without making any head- 
way, while the others kept fast overhauling them at 
every stroke. The partisans of the respective boats 
filled the air with their shouts. " Now Keys !" " Now 
Trinity !" " Why don't you pull. Keys ?" " Now you 
have 'em. Trinity!" "Keys!" "Trinity! Trinity!" 
" Now's your chance, Keys ! " " Save yourself, Keys ! " 



Five years in an English University. 69 

And it did really appear as if the Caius men would save 
themselves, for, with a sudden, mighty effort, they made 
a great addition to their boat's velocity in a very short 
time. I began to fear they had been " playing 'possum !" 
all the while, and could walk away from us after all. 

The uproar and confusion of the scene were now at 
their height. Men and horses ran promiscuously along 
the bank, occasionally interfering with each other. A 
dozen persons might have been trampled under foot, or 
sent into the Cam, and no one would have stopped to 
render them assistance. The coxswain of the Caius 
boat looked the very personification of excitement ; he 
bent over at every pull till his nose almost touched the 
stroke's arm, cheering his men meantime at the top of 
his voice. The shouts rose louder and louder. " Pull, 
Trinity ! " " Pull, Keys ! " " Go it. Trinity ! " " Keep 
on, Keys ! " " Pull, stroke ! " " Now, No. 3 ! " " Lay 
out, Greenwell ! " — for the friends of the different rowers 
began to appeal to them individually. " That's it. Trin- 
ity ! " " Where are you, Keys ? " " Hurrah, Trinity ! 
inity ! ! inity ! ! ! " and the outcries of the Trinitarians 
waxed more and more boisterous and triumphant, as 
our men, with their long slashing strokes, urged their 
boat closer and closer upon the enemy. 

Not more than half a foot now intervened between 
the bow of the pursuer and the stern of the pursued, still 
the Caius crew pidled with all their might. They were 
determined to die game at least, or perhaps they stiU 
entertained some hope of making their escape. Boats 
have occasionally run a mile almost touching. But there 
is no more chance for them One tremendous pull from 
the First Trinity, and half that distance has disappeared. 
They all but touch. Another such stroke, and you are 
aboard of them. Hurrah ! a bump ! a bump ! 



70 Five Years in an English University. 

Not so ! The Caius' steersman is on the look-out, 
and with a skilful inclination of the rudder he has made 
his boat fall oif — just the least bit in the world — but 
enough to prevent their contact. The First Trinity- 
overlapped, but did not touch. 

Exulting shouts from the shore hailed the success 
of the dexterous evasion. Enraged at being thus baf- 
fled, the pursuers threw all their strength into a couple 
of strokes. The Caius men, knowing 'that this was 
their last chance, were doing their best to get away, but 
the other boat was upon them in a moment. Again the 
skill of the cockswain was brought into play, and again 
the pursuing boat overlapped without touching. But 
it was now clear that they were only delaying their 
fate, not averting it ; for the Trinity men, going four 
feet for their three, were running them into the further 
bank in a way that left no room for change of course. 
" Hurrah for Trinity ! " shouted I, in the fulness of my 
exultation — and at that moment a horse walked against 
me and nearly threw me oif the bank. 

When I regained my feet, it was all over. Both 
boats had hauled off on one side, and ours had hoisted 
her flag. Trinity was the head of the river once more, 
and great was the joy of her inmates. 

Alas for human expectations ! When the season 
ended, Caius was first and the First Trinity — No. 4. 



^ive Years in an English University. 71 



A TEIN"ITT SUPPER PAP.TT. 

" Qtii plenos hausit cyathos madidusque qiiieseit, 
Hie bonam degit vitam moriturque facetus." 

laNOTtrs QUIDAM. 

THE social entertainments of a community are al- 
ways an object of interest to the stranger, and many 
things may be learned from them. It certainly gave 
me a new idea or two when, on the Commemoration 
Day in November, I attended a Supper of the Dons in 
Comhination Room (an apartment over the hall, devoted 
to the suppers and desserts of those in authority), after 
which meal we, that is such of the Fellow- Commoners 
as preferred grave society, sat with these college digni- 
taries round the fire playing whist for shilling points, 
and drinking bishop (mulled port), and a very enticing 
mixture appropriately called silky ^ the component parts 
of which, so far as I could judge from internal evi- 
dence, appeared to be made of rum and madeira. 

Of ordinary undergraduate wine-parties there is no 
need to say much. Thackeray has summed them up 
according to their deserts : " thirty lads round a table 
covered with bad sweet-meats, drinking bad wines, tell- 
ing bad stories, singing bad songs over and over again." 
The younger Fellows, Bachelor Scholars, and some of 
the more knowing ones among the older Undergradu- 
ates understood the thing better : had good wine, with 
the simplest accompaniments, such as biscuits and or- 
anges; and when they extemporized a supper, did it 
with equal simplicity. At such regales, one met with 



72 Five years in an English University. 

the three conditions of a perfect symposium: good 
dishes and wine, an entire absence of display and pre- 
tension, and the genial conversation of clever men. 
Some exquisites may be disposed to turn up their noses 
at people who never used claret jugs, or sugar tongs,* 
but the richest plate and china seldom witness the en- 
joyment which those primitive and yet dainty repasts 
afforded. 

Occasionally, when the aweroi would mix with the 
ordinary run of men, if their viands do not become less 
choice, their conversation may; and their fun at times 
verges on the fast and furious, as the reader shall judge 
for himself 

'• Shady rather, this composition ; you never know 
where to put your avs. I think we may get you a 
First, though, by a triumph of art, that is — How are you 
off for Mathematics ? " 

" Very mild." 

"Ever read Euclid?" 

"Rather. Say eight years ago. Can get that up 
in two days." 

" And Algebra ? " 

" When I was a boy, but never very brilliant in it." 

" If you can get ten marks out of five hundred, it is 
better than nothing. Better go to Dunny (Dunbar) 
first and see what he can do with you. Don't try too 
much at once. I cut the Algebra and Trigonometry 
papers dead my first year, and came out seventh." 

" yerre?nos. amTEov.''^ 

" Nay, stop the revolving axles of your feet a minute. 

. * How the custom of taking sugar with the fingers should 
prevail at the University and nowhere else in England, is some- 
what singular, especially as almost every man owns a sugar-tongs 
when he comes up ; but such is the case. 



Five Years in an JEnglish University. 73 

Have you anything to do after tea ? No ? then come 
up and you'll find a few men at supper." 

I went back to letter E, New Court, read 80 lines 
of Aristophanes, and did a few more bits of illustration, 
such as noting down the relative resources of Athens 
and Sparta when the Peloponnesian war broke out, and 
the sources of the Athenian revenue (we had a book of 
Thucydides for one of our subjects), all which occupied 
me till half-past nine. 

" There will be some quiet Bachelors there, I sup- 
pose," thought I, " and a Junior Fellow or two, some of 
those I have met in combination," and so thinking, I 
substituted a dress-coat and boots for the loose slippers 
and George-Sandish half frock-coat, half dressing-gown, 
which figured prominently in my ordinary evening cos- 
tume. It was about six steps aci'oss New Court, and 
three to Travis's staircase in the cloisters. He kept in 
the third story, but long ere this ascent was completed, 
the sound of voices and clatter of knives and forks gave 
token that the grub was under discussion. The outer, 
or "sporting" door, was of course w^ide open: passing 
through an interior one of green baize, I blundered up 
a narrow and totally unilluminated j^assage, and rapped in- 
stinctively at where the third door ought to be ; then 
scarcely waiting for the emphatic " come in," plunged into 
the jovial assemblage. Dead sell for the Nugee and patent 
leathers ! Abandon reigned throughout. One man was 
in a blouse, another in his shirt-sleeves, the amphitryon 
himself in a shooting-coat. There were not a dozen of 
them, but they made noise enough for thirty. As qui- 
etly as possible I slipped into the chair reserved for me 
at the host's right hand. 

" Ah, B — ! " and Travis squeezed my hand with a 
solemn and business-like affection. " Just in time. 
4 



74 Five Years in an English University. 

What will you take ? Ducks — grilled fowls, lobster 
grating, as our cook calls it — Lawson, here's a young 
gentleman will trouble you for some duck. Try some 
chamjDagne — not so good as you get in America, I'm 
afraid ; we're waiting for free trade." 

The duck and champagne went to their appropriate 
place, and then, as every one was fully occupied, I had 
time to look about me and study the company. At the 
head of the table sits our worthy " coach," Tom Travis. 
His fine person is not displayed to full advantage in a 
loose plaid shooting-coat, and his very intellectual but 
decidedly ugly features are far from being improved by 
a black wool smoking cap of surpassing hideousness. 
Take him as he is, he is a rare fellow — with American 
versatility and English thoroughness. He knows nearly 
a dozen ancient and modern languages, more or less cor- 
rectly, and when you bring him out on Greek he would 
astonish a room-full of Yankee Professors. His mathe- 
matics are decidedly ?nimos, but the use for them is past 
long ago. Two years ago he got up enough of his low 
subjects to go out among the Junior Ops, and then the 
way was easy to a high First Class in the Tripos ; and, 
as he is well up in metaphysics, you may count on him 
for a Fellowship, probably his second trial. And after 
that what will he do ? He is gay ; a puritan might call 
him dissipated, but it is not wickedness aforethought, 
but an incurable passion for seeing character which drags 
him into all sorts of society — once he went oif among the 
gypsies, Borrow-fashion, and stayed there long enough 
to learn their lingo. He is independent in politics, and 
Juste milieu (by his own account) in church matters, very 
fond of law and equally so of theology — fonder of the 
theatre than either. Perhaps he will be a nominal bai'- 
rister and an actual writer for Punch and the Magazines. 



Five Years in an English University. 75 

Perhaps he will go quite mad and write a tragedy.* 
Perhaps some of his liberal friends at " the University 
we've got in town," i:»rofanely called Stinkomalee by Ox- 
onians and Cantabs, will make him Professor of Greek 
■ — or English, or Zincali, it's all the same to him — in that 
great institution. Or perhaps (here the reader, if a New 
Englander, is requested to pull out his handkerchief, and 
borrow a flacon of salts) he will stay here for three or 
four years as an M.A. pupilizing constantly, and his 
clothes will gradually grow blacker, and his cravat 
whiter, till some day there will be stuck up on the Hall 
screen a small notice to the effect that " Mr. Travis re- 
quests the college testimonials for orders." And after 
all there are worse parsons than he would make — yea, 
even in old Connecticut — for there is a great earnestness 
in the man and benevolence extraordinary; he takes 
much interest in the poor, and is very generous to them 
— too generous indeed, for he sometimes gives them his 
tradesmen's money — and he always minds his own bus- 
iness, but to be sure that is not so rare and Phosnix-like 
a virtue in England as with us. Any of these things 
Tom Travis may be (I ought not to omit the opinion of 
his gyp^ who holds him in absolute veneration, that " Mr. 
Travis will leave the college a Fellow, and come back a 
Judge "), at present he is a Bachelor Scholar and " coach " 
of rising reputation, in which last capacity it is that B — 
has the most intimate connections with him, that young 
man being in a violent state of cram for the May exam- 
ination, and very nervous about the result. 

The Vice is Efiingham Lawson, who puts you in 
mind of Bob Sawyer, " a dissipated Robinson Crusoe," 

[♦ He is (1872) one of the most prominent playwrights of the 
period.] 



76 Five Years in an JEnglish University. 

generally dispensing with, gloves, and wearing a red 
P-coat, and an enormous stick. But under that un- 
promising exterior there is much learning, more com- 
mon sense, and even considerable warmth of feeling. 
Break in upon him during the day, his deportment will 
be brusque and his replies monosyllabic ; but give him a 
cigar and some whiskey-toddy on a winter night and af- 
ter the third tumbler he will " discourse most exquisite " 
l^olitics, literature, or theology, till morning chapel. He 
is older than Tom by a few years, say three, which will 
make him twenty-six, and has only one more chance for 
a Fellowship, which, however, he is pretty safe for, as he 
will do very well all round, his classics being good 
enough to let his mathematics in, and his metaphysics 
brilliant. 

On his right, diagonally opposite me, is a handsome 
little man with a predominating aquiline nose. Quite 
a youth, to look at, is Horace Spedding, but he is con- 
siderably older than you would take him to be — older 
in every way — and a very hard customer you would find 
him, not at all easy to sell or come over. He was an 
Etonian, and of course is an elegant Latin versifier, and 
captivatingly innocent of mathematics, which does not 
in the least jorevent him from being an acute and dexter- 
ous logician. The most remarkable thing about him 
his elpuvsia. This is is a peculiarly Cantab quality, is 
inexpressible in English save by a periphrasis ; you may 
call it the opposite vice to hypocrisy. Thus to hear 
Spedding talk in a mixed company (particularly if there 
are any freshmen or country clergymen to astonish) you 
woiild think him a monster of depravity, just fit for one 
of Eugene Sue's heroes ; whereas he is in private life a 
very quiet and temperate man of high principles and 
steady practice. The Rugby men can't abide him, tak- 



Five Years in an English University. 77 

ing this cipuvela for natural wickedness; he in return 
laughs at them, and calls them Arnold and tcater. 
There is American blood in Horace, but you will not 
easily find a man with a more thorough abhorrence of 
democratic institutions. N". B. His father lost £20,000 
by the U. S. Bank. To-morrow he is going in for a 
Scholarship, and is sure to get one ; for, much as the 
Dons dislike him, they always elect the best man. No 
one ever dared charge them with unfairness. And his 
Fellowship will follow in time. Then he will probably 
invest his small income judiciously, for he has a great 
talent for statistics and finance, and in some four or five 
years you may find him m town, coming home from 
'Change to read Plato. 

That escaped-convict looking man, next Spedding, is 
the Hon. G. Dutton, Captain of the First Trinity. 
Though a peer's son, he has come up as a pensioner, not 
an unusual step now, the expenses of a Fellow-Com- 
moner being so great. He is an Eironiast, like Horace, 
but with him it takes a more practical turn. There 
never is a gay boating supper party without George 
Dutton. The Barnwell girls know him well, and the 
Dons look askew at him. But the man is always walk- 
ing through the fire and never getting burnt. Immova- 
bly capacious of liquor, cold and passionless as Pitt or 
Paracelsus, he is the wonder and admiration of his weak- 
er companions. To hear him talk now, you would think 
his only object on earth was the Boat; working his men 
up the Long Reach at the top of their speed ; running 
round the hall after dinner to see that none of them take 
sizings (pastry is bad for the wind, say the knowing 
ones) ; prowling about in all sorts of places, by night, 
and pulling them out of all sorts of places to send them 
olf to bed at a proper hour. Yet that rowdy, reckless 



78 Five Years in an English University, 

boat-captain manages to clear Ms seven-hours' reading 
every day, and no one stands a ohance for Senior Classic 
alongside of him, except one steady, well-trained Shrews- 
bury man. (Marsden and Dutton are sworn friends, by 
the way, each worshij)j)ing the other ; so much for the 
evil effects of emulation, etc.) In more thorough bod- 
ily and mental training you cannot conceive a man to 
be ; and there is no doubt of it that he will take a high 
stand at the bar — probably be, as was his father before 
him, a law-lord, some day — if there are any lords at all 
by that time — which there will be, the Democratic Re- 
view to the contrary notwithstanding.* 

And who is next Dutton ? Who but the redoubted 
Romano ? Is that man an Englishman, or an Anglo- 
Saxon at all ? Short, dark, and much bewhiskered ; his 
name too — Romano. Yes, he is very foreign, but an 
Englishman for all that, though he has lived much on the 
Continent, where he learned to speak three or four lan- 
guages, play an instrument or two passably, and not only 
tell French dishes, but absolutely cook them. Clever 
enough is Romano, but his university course has been a 
shipwreck, and he will probably end by going out un- 
noticed among the izoTJioL He stood well his first year, 
chose to be vexed his second, because he did not get a 
Scholarship at the first trial ; migrated to a Small Col- 
lege ; couldn't stand that, and came back again — just too 
late for a Trinity Scholarship. The only tangible result 
of his migration and re-migration was a joke from Sped- 
ding. B — had unthinkingly asked, one day, " What 
could have made Romano migrate to Pembroke ? " 

" Why," quo' Horace, " when Rum'un obtained the 

[* The Democratic Ecmew lias been discontmued since tten. The 
Lords have not been discontinued.] 



Five Years in an English University. 79 

dignity of a Junior Soph, he suddenly became religious ; 
so much so, indeed, that he thought of going as a mis- 
sionary to the South Sea Islands, when it was suggested 
to him that there existed an extensive field nearer home, 
in the Small Colleges." 

Finally, on Ti-avis's left sits Wilkinson, another ship- 
wreck, so far as University distinctions are concerned. 
He came from Eton caj)itally prepared. Even now the 
classic poets are at the tip of his tongue, and when the 
fit is on him he will reply to you in extempore verse. 
For instance, I once met him in our beautiful grounds, 
just before four, our early dinner hour. 

" Well, Wilkinson, are you going to devour beef in 
the hall, or shall we take a stroll here in the sun ? " 

" Suave vorare bovem, sed suavius apricari," 

replied the unhesitating manufacturer of longs and shorts. 
Could there be a prettier spondaic line '? But alas ! 
Wilkinson has little ability and less taste for mathemat- 
ics. He will never get up enough of his low subjects 
to i^ass the Senate-house ; so the Tripos is a sealed book 
to him. Still he must get his Scholarship, and may get 
his Fellowship ; for in Trinity mathematics are not a sine 
qua non, though imperious Whewell is doing his worst 
to make them so. But it is more j^robable that he will 
take a disgust at the whole business, and do something 
very mad ; learn the flute, fall in love, or turn Romanist. 
And now who is there on my side of the table ? A 
stray Freshman or two like myself; a fat, beer-drinking 
captain of one of the second crews — Marsden ; a quiet 
Scotchman, irreproachable as a classic and a whist-j^layer, 
but not very brilliant in any other department ; and — 
yes ! that man asleep on the other end of the sofa is 



80 Five Tears in an English University. 

Fowler the Australian. He has just got out in a bye- 
term after being plucked once, and has been getting 

something that begins with D or I, on the strength of it. 
The effects of the first spree he is sleeping off; by and 
by we may perhajDS see him in his glory. 

While my survey was going on the substantials have 
been consumed, the last morsel of the indispensable 
cheese demolished, the last stoup of beer emptied. The 
decks are cleared ; Porcher, Tom's faithful gyp, appears 
with a mighty bowl. That orpripfi ra/uia Mrs. Porcher, 
produces the lemons and other punchifying appurtenan- 
ces, and Travis himself hauls out from a " wee sly neuk " 
two potent bottles. 

" Do they make punch in America ? " says my fel- 
low-pupil, Menzies, (pron. Ming-ee), opening his mouth 
for the first time. 

" Oh, yes ; and other drinks manifold. Egg-nog— 
sangaree." 

" What is sangaree ? " 

" What you call negus." 

" Negus is 7ie gitstandum^'' broke in Wilkinson. 

" Do open the window, Horace, and let that pun out." 

" Sherry cobbler, mint julep, and — " 

" Do tell us how mint julep is made," and Travis in 
his curiosity actually looked, up from the bowl, with 
whose contents he had been busy for the last five min- 
utes ; the third lemon remained uncut in his hand, and 
the knife fell vacantly on the table. 

" You don't know ? " I took confidence and drew 
myself up in conscious superiority of knowledge. " It's 
the drink of Elysium. The gods combined their ener- 
gies to concoct it. Bacchus gave his most potent spirit. 
Venus sweetened it with her most precious kiss. Po- 
mona contributed her most piquant fruit. Flora her most 



Fwe Years in an English University. 81 

aromatic herb, and Jove shook a handful of hail over 
all." As I concluded this prose version of Charles 
Hoffman, a burst of applause went round the table. 

" Bravo ! " quoth my coach. " Fancy Flora walking 
up with both hands full of mint like Demeter in the 
Thalusia — 

SpdyjLiaTa Kal fiaKuvag kv au<poTEprjGiv exoiaa. 
" B — , what does Spayfiara Kal fiaKuvag mean ? " 

I gave the proper answer, and Travis stirred up the 
beverage for the last time. 

A growl from the Vice interrupted us. Lawson had 
been for the last ten minutes ornamenting the fine fea- 
tures of the sleeping Australian with a huge pair of 
burnt cork moustaches. He now looked up from giving 
his victim the last touch, and muttered, " Don't talk 
shop ! Let's have a song ! " " Very well ! " responded 
Travis, to whom nothing ever came amiss, " Romano 
has just got out a new one by letter from Oxford. 
Come, Rum'un ! " And Rum'im did as he was bid. Bo 
it premised, for the benefit of the uninitiated, that Ox- 
onians call the sporting door " the oak." 

" Here's a song to my oak, my brave old oak, 
That was never yet left ajar ; 
And still stands lie a stout bit of tree, 

All duns and intruders to bar ! 
There's strength in his frown when the sun goes down, 

And duns at his portals shout ; 
And he showeth his might in the broad daylight 

By selling the tutor's scout. 

CHORUS. 

Then here's to my oak, my brave old oak ! 

That no heels, sticks, or pokers can mar ; 
And still may he last as in days long past, 

All duns and intruders to bar. 



82 Five Years in an English University, 

"WTien I came up to Queen's I knew I was green, 

But I swore I would ne'er be gay, 
So I sported my oak and read for a joke 

Full sixteen hours in the day : 
But cares comes to all, being plucked for my Small, 

And finding but grief for my pains, 
I next like a brick ran up all sorts of tick. 

So sported my door remains. 

Then here's to my oak, &c. 

I once knew the times, when the silvery chimes 

Of a well-plenished purse met my ear, 
"When ' your small account, sir,' and ' very large amount, sir. 

To make up,' for me had no fear. 
Now duns rule the roast, as I find to my cost. 

And a merciless set are they ; 
But they ne'er shall get in to ask for their tin 

While my door can keep them at bay. 
Then here's to my oak, my brave old oak ! 

That keeps me all safe alone, 
And still may he last, as in days long past. 

Till a hundred duns are gone." 

After some applause and a moderate pause, Dutton 
was called on to volunteer (to speak Hibernic6), and 
promptly came forth with " Villdns and Dinah," a rich 
Cockney ditty, one version of which may be found in 
Bentley's Miscellany for '43 or '44.* It goes off very 
musically, even like a chime of bells, somehow thus : 

" It vas a licker-marchant in Londing did dwell, 
Who had one only darter, a beautiful young gal — " 

" Ob-serve the accuracy of the rhyme," says Travis. 

" Her name it vas Di-nay, 'bout sixteen years old. 
Who had a fine fortune of sillivere and gold ;" 

[* This song, like the once famous French ditty, Le Sire de 
Framboisy, was well known in private among artists, students, 
and Bohemians many years before it was put on the stage.] 



Five Years in an English University. 83 

and then proceeds to relate, with much humor and pa- 
thos, how " Villikins " wooed the lovely Dinah ; how 
the governor (as governors always do) had another 
" lovyere " waiting for her ; how he mildly expostulated 
•with his refractory offspring in these moving terms : 

" O Dinay, my daugliter, I pray you don't vex me, 
For if you do, 'tis ten to one, I die of the apoplexy ;" 



" Villikins, vile vollocking (walking) her p:arding around," 

discovered the " cold corpus " of his true love, and there- 
upon drank up the " pison " always provided in such 
cases ; and then the melancholy conclusion was speedily 
relieved by a chceur foudroyant, so long, so loud, that 
it actually woke the Australian. Being waked up, Fow- 
' ler was satisfactorily put through his paces, talked an in- 
definite amount of nonsense, rubbed his face in happy 
unconsciousness of its extraordinary appendages, and 
thereby blacked it all over, to the inexpressible delight 
of the Freshmen ; sang a song which will hardly bear 
transportation, and finally extemporized a vigorous horn- 
pipe, doubtless to the great comfort of the small, precise 
Don, keeping immediately underneath, whom Tom had 
dubbed " Bloody Politeful," and was in the habit of pay- 
ing various delicate attentions to, such as stealing his 
bread and drowning mice in his milk jug. This con- 
cluded the evening's entertainments, and the company 
broke up at half-past twelve, except Lawson and the 
American, who stayed with Travis till three, talking the- 
ology. Fortimately no one in Cambridge need go to 
morning chapel unless he chooses. Who shall say, after 
this, that England is not a land of liberty ? 



84 Five Years in an English University. 



THE MAY EXAMINATION". 

" Paper, paper everywhere, 

And all our hearts did shrink, 
Paper, paper everywhere. 
Paper, and pens, and ink." 

Rhyme of the Oxford Bacheleee. 

IT may have been observed from some allusions in the 
preceding chapter that, although still occasionally 
attendant at a jollification, I had partly shaken off my 
habits of idleness and set to work ; and that this bene- 
ficial change was brought about by pressure of an ap- 
proaching examination. In Cantab phrase, I was suffer- 
ing examination funic. This was my first chance of 
distinction. True, we had undergone occasional exam- 
inations in Euclid and Greek, but these were entirely at 
the option of our individual College tutors, and without 
any public result. Knowing but little as yet of the 
complicated system, I had paid but little attention to 
its workings in Triposes and University Scholarship 
examinations, though some knowledge of them was 
forced upon me by conversation in hall. When the 
great degree examination for mathematical honors came 
off in January, and a " Small- College" man was Senior 
Wrangler, the announcement of this unusual occurrence 
did not particularly interest me ; nor, just returned as I 
was from a winter expedition into Dorsetshire, did I 
even go to see the ceremony of degree-taking and behold 
the lion of the day. The Classical Tripos next month 
I knew and cared something more about, partly because 
it was a subject that more concerned me, and partly 



Five Years in an English University. 85 

from the very uncommon circumstance of there being no 
Chancellor's Medals adjudged that year. 

All candidates for Classical Honors are first obliged 
to obtain a place among the Junior Optimes — that is to 
say, in the third class of the three into which the Math- 
ematical Tripos is divided But besides this, two golden 
medals are given annually for classical proficiency to 
Bachelors, who are at least Senior Optimes^ or Second 
Class men in mathematics. It genei-ally happens that 
one of the best two classical men in the year has this 
preUminary requisite ; but an interval of three or four 
frequently occurs on the Tripos between him and the 
second Medallist. These Medallists then are the best 
scholars among the men who have taken a certain math- 
ematical standing; but as out of the University these 
niceties of discrimination are apt to be dropped, they 
usually pass at home for absolutely the first and second 
scholars of the year ; and sometimes they are so. Now, 
it happened that this year the mathematical examin- 
ation was very difficult and made great havoc among 
the classics. Three Trinity men, and four from other 
colleges, all likely candidates for the First Class, were 
utterly plucked, and several more " gulfed," that is to 
say, they did just well enough to save their degree, but 
not well enough to be placed on the list of Mathematical 
Honors ; so that tJieir chance, also, for the Classical 
Examination was forfeited. As the First Class of the 
Classical Tripos seldom exceeds twelve, to knock out 
seven probable men considerably reduces its fair pro- 
portions ; in fact, on the present occasion, it numbered 
only five. Moreover, of these five, the first three Avere 
Junior Optimes^ and could not go in for the medals. 
There remained but two, bracketed at the foot of the 
Class, and these acquitted themselves so moderately, 



86 Five Years in an English University. 

that the first two of the Second Class, who had been 
tempted into the Medal Examination by the scarcity of 
candidates, did just about as well. No one was good 
enough, according to the usual standard, for the First 
Medal; they could not give a Second, or two Second, 
without a First, and so none were adjudged. This 
caused a new outcry against the injustice to which Clas- 
sical men were exposed, and frightened one Third-year 
man away to Oxford, while several declared that they 
would go out in "the Poll" (among the TroAAoi, those 
not candidates for Honors). 

In March, about the same time as the Medal Exam- 
ination, took place that for the Bell (University) Scholar- 
ships^ which concerned several men of my year, but not 
me. These Scholarships are open to Freshmen, who 
are sons of clergymen, and in moderate circumstances. 
The papers are chiefly Classical, a little Mathematics, as 
high as easy Mechanics, entering into it, chiefly for the 
sake of determining between the best candidates whose 
Classical merits are nearly equal. The Classical papers, 
being for Freshmen, do not include the more difiicult 
authors, Thucydides, Pindar, Aristophanes, Plautus, <fcc., 
or Composition in Greek ; but there is always enough 
Latin Composition, both in prose and verse, to frighten 
the uninitiated. A good deal of Homer is set, and gen- 
erally a fair allowance of Cicero. There is also a paper 
in Scripture History and Greek Testament. Two of 
these Scholarships are vacant every year. Trinity gen- 
erally gets the first, and frequently both. This year 
the first man was a Johnian. 

The examination which was now approaching, and 
which particularly interested me, was the College Easter 
Term Examination, familiarly spoken of as " the May," 
The Easter is the third Collegiate Term, the other two 



Five Years in an English University. 87 

being respectively called the Michaelmas and Lent. 
The nominal vacations are very long, and the actual ones 
still longer, so that there are not more than twenty-two 
weeks of real term time in the year — that is, lectm-es 
are delivered and residence required for that j)eriod 
only, and a gownsman not disposed to study has the rest 
of the year to himself For the reading men, the vaca- 
tions are the busiest time, there being so much less 
temptation to idleness when all the idle men are away. 
The terms are still further divided, each into two parts ; 
and, after " division " in the Michaelmas and Lent terms, 
a student who can assign a good plea for absence to the 
College authorities, may go down and take holiday for 
the rest of the time, having already kept enough of the 
term to answer the University requisition. So, also, a 
student who is j^revented by any accident from coming 
up at the beginning of either of these terms, may appear 
just before division, and keep the latter half But with 
the division of the Eastev term, the Collegiate year vir- 
tually ceases ; for, though the statute term does not end 
till the Commencement in July, the Commencement 
practically takes place in the Long Vacation, all lectures 
having concluded with " the May," and most of the men 
gone down. 

The " May " is one of the features which distinguishes 
Cambridge from Oxford ; at the latter there are no pub- 
lic College examinations. The Freshman is examined 
on the Classical authors which have been his lecture- 
room subjects for the year, and on First-year Mathemat- 
ics, i. e. Euclid, Algebra, and Trigonometry. The higher 
Years are similarly examined, only with this difference, 
that, whereas in the Freshman examination Classics 
count twice as much as Mathematics, for the Junior and 
Senior Sophs Mathematics preponderate in an equal or 



88 Five ITears in an English University. 

greater ratio. There are slight differences in the details 
at different Colleges. Some divide the Classical and 
Mathematical examinations, putting them a month apart ; 
some have no examination for the Senior Sophs ; some 
include in the Freshman Mathematical papers some Sec- 
ond-year subjects, such as Conic Sections ; the Johnians 
give the most marks to Mathematics from the start : but 
the general scheme is nearly the same in all. 
So much by way of preliminary. 

" What a paper has this been for Menzies ! By Jove ! 
how he must have walked into that Athenian navy ! 
He's safe now — that is, if they can read his writing. 
Who set this ? " 

" Goulburn." 

" Ah ! He's been studying Arabic lately, and may 
be warranted equal to any kind of hieroglyphics. I'm 
afraid this wasn't in your line altogether. How is it ? 
Have you been performing with credit to yourself and 
satisfaction to your coach ? What did you do with the 
navy ? " 

" Not much — it quite swamj)ed me, except the Tri- 
erarchy business." 

" Did you tell them the Attic Tribes and the Attic 
and Spartan Months ? " 

" On the contrary." 

" Did you draw that map of ra kivl epmrig and Brasidas' 
campaign ? " 

" Still less." 

" What did you do ? Did you explain the elcx(i)opa., 
and the other sources of revenue ? " 

" Three pages of Bockh bodily." 

" And gave them a nice little life of Thucydides, of 
course ? " 



Five Years in an English University. 89 

" Like bricks." 

" And no end of Aristophanes ? " 

" Any quantity." 

" Come, that's not so bad, after all. If you did that, 
and the Constitution, and Aegina, and Nicias, and ex- 
plained these passages, you may have got two-fifths' 
marks." 

It was the third day of our May examination. Tra- 
vis and myself were in the identical room that had Avit- 
nessed the festivities recently recorded. The«siibject of 
our discussion was a printed sheet, all four sides of which 
were closely filled. I can't give you a better idea of it 
than by copying the first page verbatim et literatim. 



THUCTDIDES. LIB. IV. 

Trinity College, June, 1841. 
I. (1.) What do we learn of the life, station and 
character of Thucydides from his own writings ? 
(2.) What is assigned as the date of his birth ? (3.) What 
account is given of his first vocation to write history, 
and with what probability ? (4.) Is it probable that he 
survived the end of the war ? (5.) What opportunities 
had he of acquiring information ? (6.) What period of 
time is embraced by his history ? (7.) By whom was it 
continued; and from what writers do we derive our 
knowledge of the history of Greece down to the time 
when it became a Roman province ? (8.) How far do 
you concur in the opinion expressed of Thucydides in 

the words donel tvoXAo. ja/)i^effi9a< /zfv AaKedai/uovioig Karriyopelv 

de 'Mr]vaiuv ? (9.) Quote from this book instances of the 

evdfj-yeia, the M^eig TvoLTjTiKal, and the napovofioiuaeig, Trapiauaeig, 

avTi^saeig, and Trapovo/iaaiai, attributed by Dionysius of 
Halicarnassus to the style of Thucydides ? (10.) What 



90 Five years in an English University. 

•writers have imitated Thucydides ? Quote instances of 
imitation. 

II. (1.) Give an account of the Athenian constitu- 
tion as it existed at the period of the Peloponnesian 
war ? (2.) How did it differ from that established by 
Solon ? (3.) What were the principal political measures 
introduced by Pericles ; and what was their effect upon 
the Athenian character and polity ? (4.) What were 
the principal parties at this time at Athens, and by whom 
respectively led? (5.) What is meant by rj drjiiayuyia'i 
Whom do we hear of as filling that station ? 

III. (1.) What is the date of Aristophanes' play of 
the 'iTrn-eZf ? Give a brief account of its plot. Trans- 
late the following lines, and refer to the passage in this 
book which illustrate them. 

(■^■} nal Trputfv y ^e/iov 

fid^av [lEfiax^Tog ev HvXo) AaKuviKTJv 
wavovpySTaTO. Trug ir epi3 pa ficjv v(j)apndaag 
aiirbg ■Kape'&rjK.e ryv vn k/uov fiefiayfievriv. 

'Itt. 54, 599. 

(o.) kXd-ovad <l>r]aLV avTOfidrTf /j,eTa rdv livlu 
CTTOvSuv (j)epovaa ttj ndXsi KiaTTjv Tr2.Eav 
aTTOX£ipoTOV7]-&7]vai rplg ev ry hKK?iTjaia. 

'E</). 665, 899. 

(4.) Quote any other passages from Aristophanes which 
have reference to, or illustrate events recorded in, this 
book. (5.) Mention any instances in the tragedians 
of such allusions to the political events of the day. 
(6.) Quote the lines in Euripides supposed to have refer- 
ence to Cleon, and the passage in Plato relating to the 
battle of Delium. 



Five Years in an English University. 91 

IV. "Niaaiav Kal n.7}yag Kal Tpoi^^va Kot 'Axalav, a ov noMfK/t 
iXajiov [ol AaKeSaifidvioi] all' anb T-^g nporepag ^v/i(idasug. — 

Cap. 21. 

(1.) What was the situation of 'Niaaca and Jiriyai? 
Explain their importance to the contending parties, and 
refer to any passages of Thucydldes which illustrate it. 
(2.) What was the political condition of Tpo^C^v and 

'Axa'ia ? (3.) What is meant by r) nporepa ^iififiaaig^ Give 

its date and the circumstances which led to it. What 
was its effect upon the Athenian empire ? 

There, reader mine ! Is that last page grave and 
solid enough for you ? If not, I only wish you had to 
cram for these " Thucydides Questions," as I did, and to 
write out forty pages save one of scribbling paj^er (a 
trifle larger than foolscap) about them in four hours. 

Examinations in our Colleges are seldom considered 
very important affairs to either party concerned in them. 
But at Cambridge the College and University Examin- 
ations are the staple and life of the whole system. They 
are the only recognized standards of merit, except a few 
prizes for essays and poems ; their results are published 
in all the London papers, as regularly as the English 
Queen's last drive, or the Spanish Queen's last revolu- 
tion ; their rewards are not only honorary, but pecuniary, 
coming to the successful candidates in the shape of books, 
plate, or hard cash, from the value of five dollars to that 
of five hundred or more ; and in extent of reading requi- 
site, accuracy of execution demanded, and shortness of 
time allotted, they are surpassed by no examinations on 
record. At the detail of the requisites which they 
exact, and the performances which they elicit, I have 
seen grave divines and professors on this side the water 
shake their heads doubtingly ; so I do not startle you 



95i Five Years in an English University. 

too much at fii'st, but begin gently with the first year's 
one, ranking as you might suppose among the easier 
examinations, for it is limited in its range, and you have 
a general idea of the work before you; whereas in a Tri- 
pos, the only thing you can be certain of is that there is 
nothing which you may not be asked. 

During the three terms of your collegiate year, 
extending from the twentieth of October, or thereabout, 
nearly to the end of May, you have been lectured on 
three Classical subjects, a Greek Tragedy, a book or 
speech of a Greek historian or orator, and a ditto of a 
Latin ditto. Of course you are able to translate them 
anywhere, and explain all the different readings and 
interpretations. But this is not half the battle — scarcely 
a third of it. You require a vast heap of collateral and 
illvistrative reading after this fashion. 

Our play was the Agamemnon of ^schylus. Now 
for the question j)aper, or, as it is often called, the 
" cram " paper ; you must first make yourself master of 
everything connected with the Greek stage arrange- 
ments, and the history of the Greek drama, for which 
you make large draughts upon DonaldsorCs GreeJc The- 
atre, Midler on the Eumenides (translated), and Muller''s 
History of Greek Literature. Next, you get up all you 
can find relating to the history of the dramatis personm ', 
then all the parallel passages collectable wherein Greeks, 
Romans or English may be supposed to have imitated 
old JUschylus. Then you fortify your Greek geography, 
make maps of the signal-fires' route from Troy, &c. 
Finally, you ought to have read the other two plays of 
the Trilogy, for you are likely to be asked something 
about them ; perhaps there may be a nice little bit of 
the Eumenides set, which is not to be understood by the 
light of nature. Similarly for the fourth book of Thucy- 



Five Years in on English University. 93 

dides, you cram up everything yoit can about everybody 
mentioned in Thucydides generally, and this book par- 
ticularly, taking in much Thirwall, and Bockh, and Mtil- 
ler's Dorians, and the like. And for the Tenth and 
Eleventh Books of Cicero to Atticus (that was our Latin 
subject), all your knowledge of the great men of that 
period, and of the legal matters incidentally brought in 
(e. g. marriage, inheritance, Com.itia\ will be put into 
requisition. One little bagatelle I had almost forgotten. 
You will have to turn English prose into Greek and 
Latin prose, English verse into Greek Iambic TrimeterS) 
and part of some chorus in the Agamemnon into Latin, 
and possibly also into English verse. This is the " com- 
position," and is to be done, remember, without the help 
of books or any other assistance. 

NoAV, either of the three subjects opens a pretty 
wide field before you, quite wide enough to bewilder a 
tyro, and here it is that the genius of your private tutor 
comes into play. 

Private tuition is nowhere alluded to in the Univer- 
sity or College statutes; it is entirely a personal and 
individual matter; yet it is, after the examinations, the 
great feature of the University instruction, and the pub- 
lic lectures have come to be entirely subordinate to it. 
The English private tutors in many points take the place 
of the German professors ; true, they have not the same 
explicit university sanction, but an equiA'alent for this is 
found in the final examination for degrees which they 
have all j^assed, and no man who has not taken a good 
degree, expects or pretends to take good men into his 
team. Of course, inferior coaches "vvill do for inferior 
men — 170X1.01 for iToTCkoi. Of late there has been some 
outcry against j^rivate tuition; but if not absolutely a 
vital^ it is certainly an important element in the whole 



94 Five Years in an English University. 

system, nor should it be suffered as a necessary evil, but 
admitted as a positive good. One effect of doing away 
"with it would be to throw all classical honors into the 
hands of the public-school men. Your " Eton boy " is a 
young man of nineteen, at least two years in advance 
of a Yale or Harvard Valedictorian in all classical knowl- 
edge, and in all classical elegancies immeasurably ahead 
of him. The only way in which you can bring up an 
inadequately prepared man to " hold a candle " to such 
competitors is by diligent personal attention to him. 
Travis certainly put more into me in seven months than I 
could have acquired by my own unassisted labors in two 
years ; and of his exertions in my behalf, I shall always 
retain a grateful memory. But even Avith the best tutor 
— and it is not every man who can get a Travis to coach 
him — you must make up your mind to read six times as 
much as you can make use of on the papers, since you 
can only calculate the general run of the questions in 
them without being able to make sure of any individual 
one.* 

All this time not a word of mathematics. The ques- 
tion has often been put to me, " Why did you, with your 
classical tastes, go to Cambridge rather than Oxford ? " 
To which I always reply that there is more classical 
learning to be picked up at Cambridge than I could ever 
hope to acquire. The truth is, that the Cantabs are just 
as good scholars as the Oxonians, the former excelling 
in Greek, the latter in Latin ; only at Cambridge you are 
dosed with mathematics into the bargain. But the Col- 
lege lectures and examinations for the first year embrace, 

* All examination papers are printed at the Pitt Press in the 
most mysterious way, and only leave the printer's hands about five 
minutes before they are submitted to the students, when they are 
sent to the examiner in a sealed packet, by a trusty messenger. 



Five Years in an English University. 95 

as has been said, only Euclid, Algebra, and Trigonom- 
etry. The mathematical men have read these before 
they came up, and the classical men don't wish to read 
them till just before they go out. So between too much 
knowledge and too little inclination to know, the math- 
ematical lectures are but carelessly attended ; and as the 
three mathematical papers count little more than half as 
much as the six classical, this part of the examination is 
comparatively disregarded. A classical man may cut all 
the mathematics but Euclid, while the prospective Senior 
Wrangler dare not take such a liberty with the classical 
papers. In the upper years all this is reversed. 

I had not opened a mathematical book for more than 
two years, and certainly never intended to trouble the 
exact sciences again, but as the " May " approached I 
began to feel nervous, and in accordance with Travis's 
suggestion put on a mathematical tutor for the last 
month. But " Dunny " soon found there was not much 
to be got out of me on so short notice. My analysis 
was just sufficient to make it probable that I had at 
some period of my life seen the inside of Wood and 
Peacock.* So I had to fall back upon the Euclid. A 
great godsend is Euclid to the classical men, not only 
here, but in the scholarship and the awful, accursed 
mathematical Tripos, does he stand them in good stead. 

* The Wo principal text-books in Algebra. It must be borne 
in mind that Algebra, Trigonometry, &c., aa taught and examined 
upon at Cambridge, are very different from the things that go by 
the same name in our colleges. Thus, for instance, from one-third 
to one-half of the Algebra paper (to which five hours are allotted) 
is composed of such questions as they call 'problems at Yale, and 
give specific prizes for. So, too, out of the twenty-two proposi- 
tions in the Euclid paper, five or six are original ones — " deduc- 
tions" they call them. 



96 Five Years in an English University. 

Our troubles were to begin on Wednesday ; I devoted 
the two days immediately preceding to getting up the 
first four books and the sixth, and by eight on Tuesday 
evening had them ready for immediate use. 

At nine next morning, the Hall doors were thrown 
open to us. The narrow passage between the screens 
and the buttery was as full as it usually is just before 4 
P. M., but the Trinitarians were thronging to a different 
sort of banquet. The tables were decked with green 
baize instead of white linen, and the goodly joints of 
beef and mutton and dishes of smoking potatoes were 
replaced by a profusion of stationery. Even the dais 
shared the general fate. At that high table where I 
had recently been feasting on spring soup and salmon, 
ducklings and peas, rhubarb tart and custard,* with 
old sherry, quantum suff] to imbibe, and the learned 
wit of the Dons for seasoning, I was now doomed — 
such is the mutability of human affairs — to write against 
time for four mortal hours. In those days it was not 
easy to throw me off my balance, for if a boy has any 
modesty in him, the training of a large American college, 
speaking continually to largeish audiences, writing about 
everything, and reading his writings in public, &c., is 
pretty sure to knock it out of him ; yet I did feel rather 
nervous that Wednesday morning, and could not for five 
minutes begin composedly to write out the Pons Asino- 
ruin which headed our paper, though it had been famil- 
iar to me ever since my school days. The pen-and-ink 
system of examination has been adopted partially at 
Oxford, and almost entirely at Cambridge, f in prefer- 
ence to the viva voce, on the ground, among others, that 

* The English eat tart and custard together, pouring the latter 
over the former If we did this, they "would call it a dirty habit. 

f We had a little viva voce in this examination, perhaps eqidva- 
lent to a twentieth or twenty-fifth part of it. 



Five Tears in an English University. 97 

it is fairer to timid and diffident men. The advantage 
in this respect is somewhat exaggerated : the excitement, 
though not so great for the moment, is more constant, 
and the scratching of some hundred pens all about you 
makes one fearfully nervous. Then, too, any little slips 
you make in a viva voce may be allowed for, or may 
even escape observation, but litera scripta tnanet ; every- 
thing that you put down here will be criticised deliber- 
ately and in cold blood. Awful idea ! 

At one, " close your papers, gentlemen," says the 
examiner, who has been solemnly pacing up and down 
all the time. (This examiner is never your college lec- 
turer or tutor, and of course never your private tutor.) 
At two the hall assumes its more legitimate and wel- 
come guise, dinner being thrown back two hours; at 
four the grinding begins again, and lasts till eight ; at 
night there is a supper put on specially for the occasion. 
How that supper is demolished ! what loads of cold beef 
and lobster vanish before the examinees ! Young ladies 
sometimes i')icture to themselves students as delicate, 
pale youths who live on toast and tea. Never was there 
a greater mistake. Men who study in earnest eat in 
earnest. A Senior Wrangler sat opposite me one sum- 
mer at the Scholars' table, and to see that man j^erform 
tipon a round of beef was a curiosity. 

Thus passed four days ; eight hours a day thinking 
and writing together at full speed ; two or three hours 
of cramming in the intervals (for though the jirinciple 
and theory is never to look at a book during an examin- 
ation, or indeed for two or three days before, that your 
mind may be fresh and vigorous, few men are cool 
enough to put this into practice) ; and long lounges at 
night, very different from the ordinary constitutional. 
Thus far I had rather exceeded my expectations, but 

5 



98 Five years in an English University. 

there was still impendiBg Monday's Algebra paper, and 
the thought of that left me very little rest on Sunday. 
A friend, who had obligingly backed me to the extent 
of ten shillings, endeavored to comfort me with the 
assurance that, if I had done my Classics properly, I 
must be safe without the Algebra ; and if I had not, all 
I could do on Monday would not make much difference. 
But this satisfactory assurance did not afford me full 
consolation. Far more refreshing was our stroll through 
the Trinity grounds, where Travis and I spent the greater 
part of the day. Would that I could borrow D'Israeli's 
pencil for five minutes — or I could even be content with 
Poe's — to describe these grounds as they really are. 
The north and south walks are natural arcades, thickly 
canopied with the boughs of glorious horse-chestnuts 
that fling their arms out fifteen feet, clear across the 
path, and down almost to the rails of the low paddocks 
in the midst. The west walk is protected from the 
highroad by a broad ditch and a double row of limes ; 
and the east walk lies along the green-sloping banks of 
the little Cam, which is so little here, and so regular 
even in its irregularities, that it looks more like an arti- 
ficial stream in a pleasure ground than a real river. 
Come upon this bridge ; it is before Whewell's reign, 
so you need not fear that that very worthy but some- 
what dictatorial man will ride up to you with the infor- 
mation that " a bridge is a place of transit and not of 
lounge." Eastward you have just in front of you the 
Gothic gateway of the New Court ; and north of it the 
College Library, a simple and chaste structure, built of 
a fancifully-tinted orange and yellow stone, unequalled 
for beauty and durability. Look still further north, and 
over a bend of the Cam, on a spreading, sloping lawn, 
you see a large, castellated building of the same yellow 



Five Years hi an English University. 99 

stone, with turrets and pinnacles in abundance. That is 
the " New Building " of St. John's. Southward are two 
more antique bridges and a profusion of green, with the 
majestic towers of King's looming above it. Turning 
westward, you look up the central path through an arch- 
ing avenue of lime trees. It is not long, perhaps the 
eighth of a mile, but as you look up it from the bridge 
it seems to join with the Fellows' Garden beyond the 
road,* and continue in a straight line to the very steeple 
of Coton Church, which terminates your view several 
miles oif. 

The i:)icture is not complete without the " men," all 
in their academicals, as it is Sunday. The blue gown 
of Trinity has not exclusive possession of its own walks ; 
various others are to be discerned ; the Pembroke looped 
at the sleeve, the Christ's and Catherine curiously crirAped 
in front, and the Johnian with its unmistakable " crack- 
ling."! There is also here and there a town snob to be 
seen, and a fair sprinkling of servant-maids and children. 
Here it was we Avalked, adding marks, and calculating 
the chance of my First ; and thus we made our calcula- 
tions. 

All the papers together are worth 3000, but no one 
gets full marks. This is owing partly to the great ex- 
tent of the " cram " papers, which are purposely made to 
cover as much ground as i:)ossible, that every one may 
find something in them he can do ; and partly to the fact 
that the same man is seldom (I may say never, indeed) 

* Our fellows rejoiced in two gardens, one witMn, the other 
■mthout the college grounds. 

f All the different Collegians used to have slang names, de- 
rived from various animals ; none of these have stuck except the 
" Johnian pigs." Their new bridge is popularly called tfie jntthmus 
of Suez, and the three stripes of velvet on their sleeves, •'^'■^Wng. 



100 Fivie Years in an English Uoiiversity. 

first both in classics and mathematics. The best man of 
the year has from 2000 to 2400. The ordinary limit 
of the First Class is 1200, but this standard is some- 
times raised, for one feature of Cambridge examinations 
is, that they go by breaks rather than by actual number 
of marks ; that is, by relative rather than positive merit ; 
and it is this which makes it so difficult to predict your 
place with anything like certainty. As the greatest ac- 
curacy is required by all the examiners, and the greatest 
elegance by most of them, you must not only be solicitous 
for how much you have done, but for how you have done 
it. A little well polished up is worth more than a great 
deal turned off carelessly; and you often find in the 
fourth or fifth class unfortunates who have covered up 
as much jDaper as the head man. There are, say 130 
Freshmen, who are arranged in nine classes, the First 
Class varying from twenty to thirty. Fifty marks will 
prevent one from being " posted," but there are always 
two or three too stupid, as well as idle, to save their 
" Post." These drones are posted separately, as " not 
worthy to be classed," and privately slanged afterwards 
by the Master and Seniors. Should a man be posted 
twice in succession, he is generally recommended to try 
the air of some Small College, or devote his energies to 
some other walk of life. 

" You will get full marks, or very nearly, for your 
translations," said Travis, " I hope. Put that down, 600. 
And it is safe to say half marks for the cram-papers, 450. 
About your composition I don't know. Did you do any 
Latin Verse ? " 

" There wasn't time." 

" Just as well there wasn't; and your Greek Iambics 
won't come to much. Then your Greek prose will 
count something — not a great deal, and your Latin prose, 



Five Years in an English University. 101 

is pretty fair : you might get two-thirds for it. Alto- 
gether, taking in your English verse, which will bring 
you some kv6oq from Bunbury — you may have quarter 
marks on the whole — 75 out of 300. Put in forty for 
the four viva voces. How much is that altogether ? " 

" 1165." 

" How much Euclid did you do ? Fifteen ? " 

"No, fourteen; one of them was a deduction." 

" Suj^pose one wrong : there are twenty-one on the 
paper, and the six deductions count half Perhaps you 
have half marks, and I should think not so much — say 
170 out of 400." 

" Then I did three whole questions in Trigonom- 
etry." 

" Throw them in in case of accidents. This gives 
you 1300. You ought to be safe. Take my advice and 
don't fret about the Algebra." 

But this very good advice the young man couldn't 
take, and did fret himself about the Algebra, so much 
that he slept not a wink all night ; for if the paper was 
an easy one, it might be possible to pile up a hundred 
marks or more on it, which would make the First safe 
beyond a doubt. Of course the paper was not an easy 
one, and I did perhaps four questions in it after staying 
in as many hours, then came out in a fit of disgust, and 
threw it into the fire ; but my labors were over, at any 
rate, which was a great consolation. That day I eat 
dinner for two, went to bed before nine that night, and 
slept fifteen hours and a half. Some of my friends say 
I have never been fairly awake since. Next day I took 
a long gallop ; ditto ditto on the days succeeding, and, 
when not in the saddle, read the new magazines, for May 
had passed into June, while we were in full scribble. 
By these relaxations I brought myself to a tolerably 



102 Five Years in an Miglish University. 

comfortable state of mind and body by Friday, so as to 
be prepared for the result. Meanwhile reports began to 
spread. Mistranslations leaked out, how one man ren- 
dered novas tabulas "new furniture," and another ovk 
iSpdg aKfx^, "there is no top to the seat." Discussions 
were raised about the first man of the year,* whether it 
would be Parsons, the Captain of Shrewsbury,! or Roth- 
erman, the Newcastle scholar from Eton, or Henslowe 
of King's College, London, or Macintosh from Glasgow 
(for there comes up a first-rate Scotchman occasionally). 
At length, late on Friday evening, as I was preparing a 
solitary cup of tea, one of my friends came tumbling 
into the room with the gratifying intelligence that " we 
were all right." So I and twenty-three more were par- 
aded in all the London papers as First-Class men in the 
Trinity Freshman Examination, which honor moreover 
entitled us to a prize of books at the Commemoration, 
next November, towards which the college gave us 
nineteen shillings and sixpence sterling, and we added 
as much as we liked, for this kind of humbug is common 
to Enghsh and American Colleges. 

* The names are placed alphabetically in the class-lists, hut the 
first eight or ten individual places are generally known. 

f The head boy of a private school is called the captain of it. 



Five Years in an English Umverslty. 103 



THE riEST LOISTG VACATION". — A BAD START. — THE CAM- 
BRIDGE CREDIT SYSTEM. 

"A friend in need is a friend indeed." 

" Conticuere omnes." ViEGili. 

They all went on tick together." 

Fkee Teanslation. 

THOROUGHLY recruited by a week's rest, and 
additionally inspirited by the favorable result of 
the examination, I went down to London for a fort- 
night to deliver various letters of introduction and see 
a little of the Great Metropolis. It was the pleasantest 
and liveliest time of the year, the beginning of June, 
when even London boasts of a little sun, and the subter- 
ranean-looking wilderness of houses and interminable 
mazes of muddy streets are kindled up with a few stray 
beams. But I did not know people enough " in town " 
to dine out every day, and the stranger in London who 
does not is apt to find the time hang heavy on his hands 
— even if there is a general election going on, as there 
then was ; so before fifteen days had elapsed I was back 
again at Cambridge studying. 

Studying in a vacation ! Even so ; for you may al- 
most take it as a general rule that College regulations 
and customs in England are just the reverse of what 
they are in America. In America you rise and " recite " 
to your instructor, who is seated ; in England you sit 



104 Five Years in an English TTniversity. 

and construe to him as he stands at his desk. In Amer- 
ica you go sixteen times a week to chapel, or woe he to 
you ; but then you may stay out of your room all night 
for a week together, and nobody will know or care. In 
England you have about seven chapels to keep, and may 
choose your own time of day, morning or evening, to 
keep them ; but you cannot get out of College after ten 
at night, and if, being out, you stay till after twelve, you 
are very likely to -hear of it next moi'ning. In America 
you may go about in any dress that does not outrage 
decency, and it is not uncommon for youths to attend 
chapel and "recitation-room" in their ragged dressing- 
gowns, with perhaps the pretext of a cloak ; in England 
you must scrupulously observe the academical garb 
while within the College walls, and not be too often seen 
wearing white great-coats or other eccentric garments 
under it. In America the manufacture of coffee in your 
room will subject you to suspicion, and should that bug- 
bear, the tutor, find a bottle of wine on your premises, 
he sets you down for a hardened reprobate ; in England 
you may take your bottle or two or six with as many 
friends as you please, and unless you disturb the whole 
court by your exuberant revelry, you need fear no an- 
noyance from your tutor; nay, expand your supper into 
a stately dinner, and he will come himself (public tutor 
or private), like a brick as he is, and consume his share 
of the generous jDotables, yea, take a hand in your rubber 
afterwards. In America you may not marry, but your 
tutor can ; in England you may marry, and he can't.* 

* Tlie married men at Cambridge are usually such as take 
Orders late in life ; they are men of some property, and become 
Eellow Commoners of a Small College. A father and son were 
undergraduates together at Peterhouse in my time. There are 
Bome traditional jokes about this class of students, such as that 



Five ITears in an English University. 105 

In America you never think of opening a book in vaca- 
tion ; in England the vacations are the very times when 
you read most. Indeed, since the vacations occupy 
more than half the year, he who keeps them idle will not 
do much work during his College course. Then in the 
vacations, particularly the Long, there is every facility 
for reading, that is, no temptation not to read or inter- 
ruption to your reading — no large dinners, or wine or 
supper parties, no rowing men making a noise about the 
courts, no exciting boat-races, no lectures (owing to the 
private-tutorial system, the public lectures are, with 
some happy exceptions, rather in the way of than any 
help to the best men), the chapel rules looser than ever, 
the town utterly dull and lifeless. When I was ill at 
Cambridge during the greater part of two Longs, and 
could only read a few hours each day, I thought it the 
most lonely and desolate of places. It seemed a town 
without inhabitants. All the tradesmen who can, leave 
Cambridge, and of the 1800 students not 200 remain. 
Those that are left in each College (from half a dozen 
to forty, as the size of the College may be) are all bound 
by the common tie of their studies ; their very lightest 
talk has some sJiop in it, and if not personally acquainted 
at first, they generally become so before the three 
months are over. Indeed, so attractive is the Vacation- 
College life, that the great trouble of the Dons is to 
keep the men from staying up during the Long. In the 
Small Colleges it makes a serious dilference for the few 
dignitaries of one of these lesser institutions often want 
to take a tour eji masse and shut up the College, " like 

one of them failed repeatedly in his endeavors to obtain a degree, 
and his son used to come running into the house with " Ma, Pa's 
plucked again ! " A married student is obliged to dine in Hall 
like the rest, and only freed from " gate " rules. 

5* 



106 Five Years in an English University. 

a boarding-scliool," say the Trinitarians and Johnians in 
ridicule. But at Trinity the Scholars and Sizars have a 
right to remain in residence just as much as the Fellows 
themselves, being equally " on the foundation ; " and here 
the Undergraduate ranks are augmented by the Bach- 
elors reading for Fellowships. But as the College au- 
thorities are in small force, sometimes not more than 
two or three Fellows being left, all students except 
Scholars and Sizars are warned off, save some few who 
obtain permission to stay by particular favor, and among 
these are always some Freshmen who have done wel in 
the May. So assiduously does the reading-man set him- 
self to his work from the very beginning. 

I spent some six weeks in this way, reading ^schylus 
and Euripides and taking copious notes thereon. I had 
few acquaintances of my own standing ; they were 
nearly all Bachelor Scholars ; my pi'ivate tutor was one 
of them, and we lived very quietly and pleasantly, knee- 
deep in books all the morning till two, and then stroll- 
ing about the beautiful grounds in the environs of the 
town. What little approach to out-door amusements 
one ever sees among the lower orders here is to be found 
at this season in the outskirts of Cambridge. About 
the end of June and beginning of July was a fair,* and 
we mingled among the people and went through the 
popular sports, rode in swings, attended the sixpenny 
itinerary theatres, and laughed at the tragic performance 
of " Ennery, King of Hingland," and Fair Rosamond. I 
remember the date from the Fourth of July occurring 
just afterwards, which I celebrated by a "hang-out," 
and my English guests drank claret with as much liber- 

* Not Sturiridge Fair, founded by King John, and formerly 
very celebrated, but a smaller one called Midsummer or Pot Fair, 



Five Years in an English University, 107 

ality as if they had had a personal or patriotic interest 
in the reminiscence. Our after-dinner meetings two or 
three times a Aveek were very moderate, never exceed- 
ing a couple of hours, after which we fell to work again. 
It was a quiet and virtuous existence, plenty of occupa- 
tion without fatigue or excitement, and enough relax- 
ation to keep us in the best condition. The only draw- 
back to our felicity was that during the Long, the con- 
fectioners, like those of Little Pedlington, made no ice- 
cream unless it was ordered the day before; and this 
was not such a deprivation as it would be in New York, 
the English summers being not quite so warm as ours. I 
recollect being obliged to build a fire one day in this 
very July. 

This kind of life had grown upon me so, that I re- 
solved, though somewhat older than I could have wished, 
and a year above the average age of those in my stand- 
ing, to go through the whole course, and consequently 
give up my original project of spending but one year at 
Cambridge and then proceeding to a German University. 
A very good resolution, so far as the intention to make 
myself a scliolar was concerned ; unfortunately, imme- 
diately after it was taken, I went to w^ork so as to destroy 
most of the benefits of it, by suddenly taking a trip 
homeward over the Atlantic, under the excuse of having 
to attend to my afiairs. At my departure I was in per- 
fect health, stronger and nimbler than I ever was before 
or have been since, having practised vaulting over gates 
and leaping ditches, and other extempore gymnastics in 
vogue at Cambridge, till my performances actually as- 
tonished myself But I left the thermometer at 70° in 
Liverpool and found it 90° at Boston, nor did it fall 
much below that for the two months I was in America. 
Finally, the confined air of a small stateroom completed 



108 Five Years in an English University. 

what the change of temperature, had begun, and de- 
ranged my system so as to bring on a severe illness 
which manifested itself just as I was fairly settled at 
Trinity again in my new quarters, a very nice suite of 
Fellow-Commoner's rooms * (for having come up late 
the first year, I Avas then obliged to take whatever I 
could get). 

For seven months I lay in a precarious state, and for 
more than two years was exceedingly feeble, and unable 
to return home or to travel any distance from my place 
of residence. A palpitation of the heart, brought on by 
derangement of the liver and stomach, made it impossi- 
ble for me to undergo any physical or mental exertion, 
and hardly allowed me to eat enough to support life. 
Having, as the firs* resource in this deprivation of ordi- 
nary employment, attacked all the miscellaneous read- 
ing I could lay hands on, my eyes began to fail, and I 
was totally helpless. In this strait an opportvinity was 
afibrded me to test the value of English friendship, and 
obtain an insight into the best side of English character 
which otherwise I might not have done. Time was of 
great value to all my acquaintances that were Under- 
graduates or Bachelors (the idle men whom I had known 
in my first year were now absent, having been elimina- 
ted by the usual process) and the Fellows, though more 
at leisure, had still their routine of study and amuse- 
ment which had not fitted them for, and was not agree- 
ably varied by, the task of amusing an invalid who could 
do nothing to amuse himself and was even forbidden to 

* There is always a great demand for the rooms in College. 
Those at lodging-houses are not so good, while the rules are equal- 
ly strict, the owners being solemnly bound to report all their lodg- 
ers who stay out at night, under pain of being " discommonsed," a 
species of College excommunication. 



Five Years in cm English University. 109 

talk. But these men sacrificed hours to me night after 
night, doing all in their power to divert and alleviate my 
unpleasant situation. Pecuniary embarrassments were 
added to my other troubles at this time. It was just after 
the failure of the TJ. S. Bank of Pennsylvania, when a dis- 
trust of American securities and American debtors was 
beginning to spread in England, and my College tutor, 
to whom I was indebted, had no certain knowledge of 
my ultimate solvency, yet he acted towards me with the 
utmost delicacy. Great as the accommodation was, it 
never struck me so much as the kindness of those who 
used to visit me, six or seven in an evening, and whose 
interesting and cheering conversation made the tedious 
hours of my illness move lightly by. It Avould make 
too long a list to enumerate them all, but there was one 
so particularly kind to me that I cannot help making 
mention of his name here. If John" Grote ever sees 
this page, will he accept this public acknowledgment of 
my obligations to him, and this testimony to his kind- 
ness toward a sick and helpless stranger ? 

The goodness and amiability associated in all private 
relations with the name of Grote rival the talent and 
learning which have long been publicly connected with 
it. More cannot be said ; and had I said less, I should 
have to tax myself with ingratitude. 

While thus unable to take part in the studies and 
occupations that were going on about me, I nevertheless 
observed and heard not a little respecting them. " Shop," 

[* Mr. Grote succeeded Dr. "WTiewell as Professor of Moral 
Philosophy. He died some years before his elder brother, the his- 
torian. The synopsis of his lectures (published under the title 
Exploratis Philosophica) and his posthumous work, On the UtUitU' 
rian Philosophy, are most valuable books, but emphatically hard 
reading.] 



110 Five Years in an English University. 

or as it is sometimes here called " Calendar^'' * necessar- 
ily enters to a large extent into the conversation of the 
Cantabs, and it was one of my weaknesses to be amused 
by it. Of all kinds of personal gossip it is certainly the 
most harmless — what degree such a man took in such a 
year, who are likely to be the next Scholars, and so forth. 
But, besides, I looked beyond this, to the light which 
such matters threw on the general system ; indeed, the 
only way I had of improving my time was to pick up all 
the particulars I could about the various colleges, and 
the most distinguished private tutors, and the modifica- 
tions of studies pursued at and under each. But before 
proceeding to detail any of these, a recent remark re- 
quires some explanation. I have spoken of being in debt 
to my tutor. 

It is pretty generally known that young men at the 
English Universities often contract debts as Undergrad- 
uates which seriously impoverish their families, or cripple 
themselves in after life. The University authorities have 
often been blamed for this, but it is easier to blame them 
than to state what they ought to do and can do to pre- 
vent it. The parties most in fault are the tradesmen, 
who, without taking any pains to ascertain beforehand a 
Freshman's means and wants, tempt, solicit and worry 
him into making purchases. The academical powers 
have made a rule that all bills shall pass through the col- 
lege tutors; for the students' further protection they 
have enacted that any tradesman bringing a suit against 
an Undergraduate shall be " discommonsed," i. e., all 
the Undergraduates are forbidden to deal with him. 
Many suspicious or doubtful characters are similarly 

* Because tte Cambridge Calenda/r contains all the lists of Tri- 
poses, Prizemen, &c. 



Five Years in an English University. Ill 

treated, so as to warn the students that if they will hold 
any communication with them, it must be at their own 
risk. It is, indeed, said that the Dons set a bad exam- 
ple, by living extravagantly themselves. If all the loose 
exaggerations are pared away from this charge so as to 
bring it down to its nucleus of truth, the amount of it is 
that the Fellows eat and drink rather more luxuriously 
than is necessary. But this does not justify the Under- 
graduates in doing the same, any more than a son has a 
right to spend as much money as his father does. 

It must not be supposed, however, that extravagant 
and imprudent young men are the only ones who get 
into debt. There is another and less mischievous de- 
velopment of the credit system. When a young man 
of scanty means shows good talents and disposition, it is 
common for his college tutor to trust him for a portion 
(half or more) of his college bills (frequently including 
the sent-in tradesmen's bills), during his second and third 
years, so that he may be free to avail himself of private 
tuition and other advantages, and in no respect crijDpled 
during his competition for honors. When the student 
takes his degree, he obtains by pupilizing enough to ren- 
der further assistance unnecessary, and soon begins to 
pay off his debt, and when he gets his Fellowship, he 
clears himself very speedily. It is, in fact, pledging his 
labor and time two or three years ahead, and though 
such a mortgage may in some cases prove an awkward 
incumbrance, the general result is good : it enables many 
first-rate men to get a first-rate education, which they 
could not otherwise have obtained. Sometimes a young 
man in this position falls ill or acquires bad habits, and 
his tutor loses the whole. 

The tradesmen are in the habit of complaining that 
the tutors receive from their pupils money to pay them, 



112 Five Tears in an English University/. 

and then keep it back for months or years, thus defraud- 
ing them of large sums in interest. Hearing this charge 
repeated beyond the University limits, I took the trou- 
ble to investigate it myself. The result of my inquiries 
was that the tutors' bills are paid on an average one term 
before the tradesmen's, and that the tutor, on the average 
of his pupils, has to wait five terms, so the tradesman 
must wait six, or two years, and the tutor gains from two 
to four months' interest, which makes at English rates 
about one and a quarter per cent, commission on all the 
money that goes through his hands — little enough for 
his trouble, even putting his occasional losses out of the 
question. 



Five Years in an English University. 113 



THE SECOND TEAR. — A CHAITGE OF DTN"ASTT. — THE 
LITTLE-GO. — CONFLICT OF UNIVERSITY AND COL- 
LEGE SYSTEMS. — VARIOUS EXAMINATIONS. 

Inclytus Albertus, doctissimus atque disertus, 
Uuadrivium docuit et onme scibile solvit. — 

AFTER the trial lieat of the first May examination, 
the field of candidates for Honors begins to as- 
sume something like a calculable form. The rucJc falls 
off rapidly, and the good men settle down to their pace. 
Many of them are now for the first time under crack 
private tutors — for it frequently, indeed usually happens, 
that a "coach" of reputation declines taking men into 
his team before they have made time in public. When 
the Freshman has not a public-school reputation, and 
sometimes even when he has, the result of the May de- 
cides whether he will go out in Honors or not — that is, 
whether he will be a reading or a non-reading man (for 
with all but the very badly prepared, going out in Poll 
is equivalent to doing nothing — so far as University stud- 
ies are concerned — for at least half the course). If his 
success be such as to encourage him, he begins his work 
again, as has been observed, early in the Long vacation, 
towards the close of which, however, he takes a real va- 
cation of a month or so (generally provided for in all 
engagements with private tutors or for reading-parties), 
so as to come to his work fresh at the beginning of the 
college term. Though not so decisive in its results as 
the third year, this second year is the turning point for 



114 Five Years in an English University. 

not a few. Some who have done very well in low math- 
ematics, break down after passing the Differential Cal- 
culus.* Some grow indolent and fall off from depending 
too much on their first year's success. Some Trinity 
men are disgusted by not getting a Scholarship at the 
first trial, and strike work in consequence. 

A Foundation Scholarship being the requisite step. 
ping-stone to a Fellowship,! is naturally one of the first 
objects of our reading-man's aim. At several of the col- 
leges these Scholarships are given to the students who 
acquit themselves best in the first May. At Trinity 
there is a special examination, held about the beginning 
of the Easter term, in which all Second and Third-year 
men are eligible candidates. The whole number of men 
making up the two years is about one hundred and sev- 
enty, and some seventy of these usually present them- 
selves for the vacant Scholarships, which are from twelve 
to twenty in number, but generally less than fifteen. 
The successful candidates of the second year are usually 
to those of the third in the proportion of five to eight. 
This examination does not differ from the May merely 
in being optional ; another very important distinction 
consists in the absence of subjects fixed beforehand; the 
candidates go in trusting to their general knowledge. 
At the same time there is not an unlimited selection 
from the Classics, as m. the Tripos and the University 
Scholarships ; the candidate need not expect to find any 

* TTie Differential is considered the first step in a really matlie- 
matical education ; the next is to attack Geometry of Three Di- 
mensions. One of our mathematical coaches used to divide man- 
kind into two classes, those who had read Geometry of Three 
Dimensions and those who had not. 

•f Except in some rare cases, as when a member of another col- 
le<?e is chosen Fellow. 



Five Years in an English University. 115 

Pindar, Aristophanes, or Aristotle, any Persius, or Lucre- 
tius, on the papers ; and seldom will there be any Plato, 
-^schylus or Theocritus, Plautus or Juvenal. In Greek, 
Homer, Hesiod, Sophocles, Euripides, Herodotus, Thucy- 
dides, Xenophon, and Demosthenes ; in Latin, Virgil, and 
Horace, Cicero, Livy, and Tacitus, are the authors usual- 
ly selected from; and this still leaves a pretty wide 
range, some of these authors being sufficiently volumi- 
nous. The Mathematical papers do not go higher than 
may be supposed to fall within the ordinary reading of 
a Third-year aspirant to Mathematical Honors. They 
are only half as many in number as the Classical papers, 
and probably do not coimt more than half as much; at 
any rate the examination is more favorable to Classical 
than to Mathematical men ; a good Classic may get a 
Scholarship with the least possible quantity of Mathe- 
matics — say twenty marks out of four hundred — a 
Mathematician equally deficient m classics must be first- 
rate indeed in his branch to succeed. In the present 
year (1842) it looked as if these proportions were to be 
somewhat more equalized, owing to a change in the head 
of affairs. Our master, Dr. Christopher Wordsworth 
(brother of the poet), had resigned, and was succeeded 
by Dr. Whewell. 

Dr. Whewell's accession to the Mastership of Trinity 
might well have been an era in the history of that 
" royal and religious foundation." The new Head was a 
gentleman of most commanding personal appearance, 
and the very sound of his powerful voice betokened no 
ordinary man. He was a remarkably good rider even 
in a country of horsemen, and the anecdote was often 
told, and not altogether repudiated by him, how in his 
younger days, about the time of his ordination, a pugilist, 
in whose company he accidentally found himself while 



116 Five Years in an English University. 

traveling, audibly lamented that such thews and sinews 
should be thrown away on a parson. With these phy- 
sical advantages was combined a knowledge almost lit- 
erally imiversal. Some people are said to know a little 
of everything ; he might be truly said to know a great 
deal of everything. Second Wrangler of his year, Pro- 
fessor of Mineralogy, and afterwards of Moral Philoso- 
phy,* author of a Bridgewater Treatise, and writer on a 
diversity of subjects, scientific and ethical, he kept up 
his Classics to an extent unusual for a scientific man, 
and did not neglect the lighter walks of literature. His 
name ^is on the list of the Cambridge Prize Poets, and 
is also known in connexion with several translations from 
the German. In conversation it was scarcely possible 
to start a subject without finding him at home in it. A 
story is current about him, not absolutely authenticated, 
but certainly of the si non vero hen trovato sort, that 
some of the Dons who were tired of hearing him ex- 
plain everything, and enlighten everybody in Combina- 
tion room, laid a trap to catch him in this wise : They 
determined to get themselves up thoroughly in some 
very out-of-the-way topic, and introduce it as if by acci- 
dent on the first convenient occasion. Accordingly, they 
pitched upon something connected with China, either — 
for there are two versions of the story — Chinese musical 
instruments or the Chinese game of Chess. Various odd 
books, and particularly a certain volume of a certain 
Cyclopsedia, were dragged out of their dusty repose 
and carefully perused. Next Sunday, when the College 
dignitaries and some stranger guests were marshalled 
over their port and biscuit, the consj)irators, thoroughly 

* Teclmically called Casuistry in tlie University, and some- 
times Moral Theology. 



Five Years in an English University. 117 

primed, and with their parts artistically distributed, 
watched their time and adroitly introduced the prepared 
topic. One after the other they let drop most naturally 
a quantity of strange erudition, marvellously astounding, 
no doubt, to the Small-College Dons present, and appar- 
ently puzzling to the object of attack, for he actually 
remained silent for a full quarter of an hour, till just as 
the parties were congratulating themselves on their 
complete success, he turned to the principal speaker^ 
and remarked, " Oh, I see you've been reading the arti- 
cle I Avrote for such a Cyclopaedia in such a year." 
They gave it up after that. 

A man that knows so many things cannot know them 
all perfectly, and is scarce likely to know any one of 
them with the accuracy attainable by a man who has 
made that particular branch his specialite j and in Eng- 
land, where the division of mental, like that of mechani- 
cal labor, is carried out to a degree which must be wit- 
nessed and experienced to be conceived, it easily hap- 
pened that Dr. Whewell was looked down upon in each 
of his pursuits by the man who had no other pursuit but 
that one. In this respect he has been compared to Lord 
Brougham, the extent of whose knowledge has destroyed 
all chance of his accuracy and jDolish in any one branch 
of it ; but there is this important difference in Brough- 
am's favor, that in one thing — oratory — he stands among 
the first of his age, while it could not be said of Whe- 
well that he had attained a similar preeminence in any 
one branch. The mass of his general knowledge, taken 
together, constituted his strength. There were few men 
of like pretensions to weigh or appreciate the strength 
of this; he was judged piecemeal, and part of him taken 
for the whole, by men whose whole development and 
training was partial. Sydney Smith's saying of him, 



118 Five Years in an English Tlniversity. 

" that omniscience was his forte, and science his foible,"' 
was very generally circulated and applauded. 

But this ridiculed omniscience well fitted him for the 
head of a great College, numbering among its members! 
and pupils men of so many different pursuits. In liber- 
ality and reach of study, and acquaintance with general 
and foreign literature, Cambridge is always before Ox- 
ford, and the Trinity men considerably in advance of the 
other Cambridge collegians. It might have been sup- 
posed that Whewell's accession to the Mastership was 
the very thing they wanted. Yet this event was any- 
thing but welcome to the majority of both Fellows and 
Undergraduates, who, if their wishes and votes could 
have influenced the matter, would certainly have chosen 
either Dean Peacock or Professor Sedgwick to rule over 
them. This repugnance towards a gentleman so distin- 
guished arose from some unfortunate propensities of his, 
which had been conspicuous enough during his Tutor- 
ship, and which it was correctly supposed would be 
rather intensified than diminished by his elevation. The 
Professor of Casuistry was an intolerably fussy man — a 
rigid martinet, weakly punctilious about trifles. Such a 
man, however great his learning, or talents, or merit of 
any sort, may perhaps make a great Schoolmaster, but 
can never be a good presiding oflicer over students of 
mature years. By treating like schoolboys those nearly 
or quite arrived at the age and dignity of men, he chafes 
and worries them to no purpose, and some j)ortion of 
the annoyance must at times react upon himself. While 
leaving untouched actual abuses (of which Trinity, like 
most old institutions, could boast a few fat ones), our 
new master enforced petty and long-neglected regula- 
tions about walking over grass-plots, and crossing the 
court without a cap and gown at certain hours ; he re- 



Five Years in an English University. 119 

vived obsolete laws against the domestic variety of tiger, 
which interdicted the possession of that useful animal to 
any but Noblemen or Fellow Commoners ; * he exacted 
the most rigorous personal etiquette, causing it to be 
openly promulgated or secretly circulated by the tutors 
that when Undergraduates were invited to the conver- 
saziones at the Lodge, they were expected never to sit 
down in the Master's presence. By these and similar 
proceedings he made himself very unpopular with the 
mass of the students, and the Classical men were particu- 
larly annoyed at an avowed intention of changing the 
plan on which Scholarships had been given. It was 
semi-officially announced through the various tutors and 
other College officers (the Master is not supjjosed to 
hold any personal communication with the Undergrad- 
uates in his official capacity), that a certain modicum of 
Mathematics — I forget how many marks, but certainly 
more than many of the Classical men had been in the 
habit of aspiring to — would be absolutely insisted on 
and the Classical papers of those who did not come up 
to this standard would not be looked at. The discon- 
tent that ensued was not of much importance in itself, 
but has some interest as illustrating the antagonism of 
Classics and Mathematics, and the absolute detestation 
in which a majority of Classical men hold purely scien- 
tific studies. Even in our Colleges this is easy to re- 
mark, but in a foreign University where both branches 
are carried out much further and more thoroughly, the 
line is very strongly drawn. " Double men," as pro- 

* There -were but few Pensioners who "hung out" servants of 
their own, which gave a worse air to the rule, as it seemed like a 
privilegium against those few. Fellow-Commoners used to be an 
exception to all laws, human and divine, at all the Colleges. I 
am not sure but they are so still at some of the small ones. 



120 Five Tears in an English University. 

ficients in both Classics and Mathematics are termed, 
are very rare ; to make one, not only diversity of talent, 
but a strong constitution is required. The work de- 
manded of a man reading for high Honors in both Tri- 
poses is tremendous^ and every year increasing ; and the 
Calendar does not show an average of two " Double 
Firsts " annually for the last ten years out of one hun- 
dred and thirty-eight graduates in Honors and more 
than twice that number of graduates altogether.* 

The Classical men found the University Tripos regu- 
lations which required them to go out in Mathematical 
Honors before they could sit for Classical, exceedingly 
oppressive, but they endured them as sturdily as their 
elders do the taxes; it was some compensation and con- 
solation to be able to do without the much-disliked 
study at Trinity, and get Scholarships and Fellowships 
by dint of Classics alone. For Trinity scholars had been 
so utterly unmatheraatical as to go out among the tzoXKoX^ 
and yet were elected Fellows after it. The cases were 
not very common, to be sure, but they were numerous 
enough for a precedent. To introduce into the College 
examinations any restrictions like those which embar- 
rassed the University ones, was invading the votaries of 
Classic lore in their very citadel. What particularly 
annoyed them was the threatened loss of time — having 
to get up a certain quantity of mathematics twice or 
three times instead of once; since whatever they imbibed 
would be lost again in the intervals from the middle of 
the second to the middle of the third year, and thence 
to the last Long, or the term before the Degree ; the 
intermediate presence of Classical work being sufficient 
to drive it out, even if it had interest enough in itself to 

* There were fourteen Double Firsts between 1840 and 1850. 



Five ITears in an English University. 121 

stand any chance of being retained — which was not the 
case. They were willing to undergo the unjjleasant 
dose once for all at the end of three years, but to take it 
once a year for three years in succession, was unendur- 
able. Even the Mathematicians did not all agree with 
the Master, their College pride getting the better of 
their professional and scientific amour propre. Not be- 
lieving that Trinity could be brought up to the Mathe- 
matical point of Johns, they feared he would only en- 
danger its Classical superiority by his experiments. 
Ultimately this requisition of a stated amount of Mathe- 
matics in the Scholarship, after being enforced for a year 
or two, came to be practically a dead letter. 

But there is another interruption to which all stu- 
dents, whether Classical or Mathematical, and whatever 
College they belong to, are subject in the middle of 
their second year ; and which is noteworthy as showing 
the mutual independence of, or in fact, conflict between 
the public and private instruction often to be observed 
at Cambridge. This interruption is the previous Exam- 
ination commonly called the Little Go (at Oxford the 
Smalls)^ being the former of the only two examinations 
required by the University for the B. A. degree. It 
is held near the end of the Lent (second) Term. The 
subjects are partly constant and partly variable ; the 
variable ones, of which notice is given a year in advance, 
are a Greek author, a Latin author, and one of the four 
Gospels ; the only constant subject at this time was 
Paley's Evidences. Author in the last sentence may be 
taken in a limited sense, as denoting one Book of Homer, 
Herodotus, Livy, or Tacitus, two short dialogues of 
Plato, one Greek Tragedy, or the like. The examina- 
tion involves a little viva voce, and it was said that if a 
man did his viva voce well, none of his papers were 
6 



122 Five Years in an English U7iiversity. 

looked at but the Paley. As it is only a. pass examina- 
tion, the examinees are arranged alphabetically, except 
a comparatively few, perhaps a fourth or fifth of the 
whole number, who have only just passed, and for whose 
special benefit a Second Class is provided. 

It will be seen from the above statement that there 
is nothing in the Little Go to occupy a good schoolboy 
of fifteen more than three or four months ; and for a 
Second-year Cantab of good standing, there is really 
nothing to prepare except the Paley ; he might without 
danger trust to the light of nature for his Classics, or if 
scrupulous to run no risk, read them up suflSciently for 
practical purposes in three days, and the same time prop- 
erly applied would make him master of his Evidences.* 
Nevertheless, the Classical men do grumble a little, 
chiefly, I imagine, on account of the two or three days 
consumed in the examination, which some of them can 
ill spare at that jimcture, and because they can gain no 
credit in a pass examination, and may get disgraced by 
dropping into the second class through some careless- 
ness in Paley. On the Mathematical men it comes 
rather harder ; some of them, especially in the Small 
Colleges, are much behindhand in their Classics, and re- 
quire some time to get up their subjects. But I believe 
no one of any mathematical eminence ever was plucked 
for the Little Go, though some have been placed in the 
second class; and it is so obvious that a Second-year 
collegian ought to know Classics enough to pass such an 

* Some of the technical memory artifices for getting np Paley 
■were not unamusing ; for instance, the eleven proofs of New Tes- 
tament authenticity were abbreviated into two barbarous Hexa- 
meters, thus : 

Quoted, sui generis, distinct tit., publicly, comment. 

Both sides, gospel, epist., adversa., catalogue, apocry. 



Five Years in an English University. 123 

examination, that no attempt has ever been made to alter 
it in the way of diminution. But within the last three 
years, as one of a system of changes tending to equalize 
the requirements from Mathematicians and Classics, two 
books of Euclid and ordinary Arithmetic were added ; 
and about the same time a knowledge of Old Testament 
History was made a requisite. 

There is a Third Examination during the Lent Term, 
in which Second-year men may be candidates, though 
the number who avail themselves of the opportunity is 
not large — the University Scholarship. I say Scholar- 
shij), for though there are several on ditferent founda- 
tions, it has been so arranged that one is vacant every 
year, and seldom more than one;* the examiners and 
style of examination are the same for them all, and they 
may be practically considered as one and the same. 
The examination is ojDen to all Undergraduates, but the 
competition lies chiefly among those of the Third year. 
It includes more Latin composition than the Tripos, and 
even a wider range of authors, embracing Athenseus, 
the Comic fragments, and such out-of-the-way subjects 
which enter into no other examination. Yet it some- 
times happens that a Second-year man is the successful 
candidate, and there are rare instances of a Freshman 
gaining the prize. A large proportion of the candi- 
dates are from that year ; the Freshman, not being 
definitely settled to his work, or having his relative 
place at all assigned him, tries more experiments than 
the Junior Soph, who, having more definite and imme- 

* There have been two vacancies together three times in the 
last ten years. The Fo-undations are four, the Craven, Battie, 
Davles, and Pitt, to which a new one, the Parson, has just been 
added. The annual emoliunent varies from £30 to £75. 



124 Five Years in an English University . 

diate objects in view, is unwilling to be drawn aside by 
a useless competition with better men. It might be sup- 
posed that the exercise and practice afforded by the 
examination would attract many in all the years, and so 
no doubt they would, if the individual results could be 
got at ; but as only the best ten or twelve have any 
means of hearing even in the most indirect way how 
they have acquitted themselves, the great end of an ex- 
amination — to correct errors and ascertain progress — is 
not attainable. Where but one man's standing is to be 
decided out of some eighty, of course the first object is 
to eliminate the candidates who have no chance, and 
whom a few of the Composition papers may effectually 
disiDOse of Probably there are never more than a dozen 
or fifteen whose papers are carefully collected, and whose 
comparative standing the examiners themselves could 
tell with accuracy. This year (1842), a Johnian gained 
the Scholarship, which usually falls to a Trinity, or King's 
man. 

All the examinations above mentioned take place 
after the first term. But the Johnians have split their 
May, throwing back the easier subjects into an examin- 
ation at the end of the Michaelmas term. In the third 
year of Whewell's administration he introduced a some- 
what similar examination into Trinity, but only for the Ju- 
nior Sophs. These half examinations^ from being partial 
and not very difficult, have only a moderate importance 
attached to them. They make their First Class rather 
smaller than that of the Freshman May. When it is 
stated in addition that some of the Small Colleges also 
split their Second-year examination as well as their 
Freshman, and that some of them have a voluntary Clas- 
sical examination, we have completed our enumeration 
of the tests. College and University, voluntary and com- 



Five Years in an English University. 125 

piilsoiy, to which the Second-yeai- man or Junior Soph is 
liable, and in which he is personally interested up to the 
end of his Lent Tei'm, But these do not usually occupy 
his attention so entirely as to prevent him from taking a 
lively interest in the great University examinations, the 
Mathematical Tripos in January, and the Classical Tri- 
pos in February. For he now begins to understand 
more of the working of these, and to know, by reputa- 
tion at least, the j^rominent candidates for Honors from 
his own College, and to be anxious about this Mathe- 
matical friend who hopes to be among the first Ten, and 
that classical acquaintance who is in danger of the gulf. 
It has been mentioned that the University Scholar- 
ship was this year borne off by a Johnian. En revanche 
we triumphed in both Triposes, having in Mathematics 
the Senior Wrangler (who is almost always, as a matter 
of course, a Johnian), and in Classics the Senior Classic 
and Senior Medalist, as usual. Some circumstances 
worth mentioning attended these examinations. Our 
Trinity Senior Wrangler (we have one so seldom that 
he is prone to be an object of curiosity and a pet) was a 
crooked little man, in no respect a beauty, and not in the 
least a beau. On the day of his trium2:)h, when he was 
to receive his hard-earned honors in the Senate House, 
some of his friends combined their energies to dress 
him, and put him to rights properly, so that his appear- 
ance might not be altogether unworthy of his exploits 
and his College. He had generally the reputation of 
being a mere Mathematician, which did him great injus- 
tice, for he was really a man of much varied informa- 
tion, and that on some subjects the very opposite of sci- 
entific — for instance, he was well up in all the current 
novels, an uncommon thing at Cambridge, where novel 
reading is not one of the popular weaknesses. His 



126 Five Years in an English University. 

Johnian competitor, who was a fearfully hard reader, 
and had once worked tioenty hours a-day for a week to- 
gether at a College exammation, almost broke down 
from over-exertion just as the time of trial was coming 
on, and found himself actually obliged to carry a supply 
of ether and other stimulants into the examination, in 
case of accidents. Nevertheless he made a good fight 
of it, and having great pace as well as style in addition 
to his knowledge, beat the Trinity man a little on the 
bookwork, but was beaten two hundred marks in prob- 
lems, which decided the contest. One of the low book- 
work papers, to which three hours were allotted, hap- 
pening to be rather shorter than usual, the Jolinian, 
either as a bit of bravado to frighten his oj)ponent, or 
because, having done all that could be done, he had no 
reason for waiting longer, came out at the expiration of 
two hours, having floored the paper in that time. His 
early exit did not escape notice, and the same evenmg a 
Trinity Senior Soph rushed up in great fear to the room 
of his friend, on whom the hopes of our College de- 
pended. " C ! C ' ! they tell me S floored 

the paper this afternoon in two hours. Is it so ? " The 
Mathematician, who was refreshing himself after the 
fatigues of the day with the innocent and economical 
luxury of a footbath, looked up at the querist from his 
tub with the equanimity of a Diogenes, and replied: 
" Likely enough he did. I floored it myself in two 
hours and a half" The examination for the SmitKs 
Prizes^ which takes place immediately after the result 
of the Mathematical Tripos is declared, and which serves 
to rectify or confirm the arrangement of the first three 
or four Wi'angiers, had a similar result ; our man beat 
his opponent, but with nothing to spare. 

The Senior Classic was a nobleman's son, also distin- 



Five Years in an English University, 127 

guished as one of the best oai-s ou the river. He had 
moreover been Caiitam (Head) of the Poll, for it is a 
privilege of noblemen's sons that they go out in Classics 
by first passing the ordinary degree examination instead 
of the Mathematical. This, and obtaining a degree by 
seven terms' residence instead of ten (making just a 
year's difference),* are the only unfair privileges they 
enjoy. The reason assigned for both is the same — that 
they may be wanted in public life at an earlier age than 
the other students ; and the intention evidently was, 
that those going out in Classics through the Poll should 
do so after a residence of two years and a half But as 
this, though the spirit, is not the letter of the law, some 
of them take advantage of the double chance, and enjoy 
the same length of time for Classical preparation as the 
other students, without being hampered by the Mathe- 
matical examination. On the other hand, there are m- 
stances of young men who have chivalrously refused to 
avail themselves of this advantage, and have gone out in 
the Mathematical Tripos along with the mass of Classi- 
cal students. The privilege holds good, even if the 
nobleman has entered as a Pensioner, but it does not 
extend to the Chancellor's Medals, all candidates for 
which are obliged to be Senior Optim(3S. The great 
damage done to the Classical men the year before, and 
the outcry it occasioned, made the Mathematical exam- 
iners very lenient this time. No Classic was plucked, 
and the Senior Optim6 list stretched down to include 
as many as possible. But some of our Scholars had 
already gone out among the ■koXKoX through fear of the 
result. Both the Medalists were Trinity men ; the Sec- 
ond was only sixth on the Tri^DOS. 

* This also iuvolves their exemption from Little Go. 



128 Five Tears in mi English Uiiiversity. 

When the examination for the Trinity Scholarships 
arrived, it may be supposed I was in no condition to 
present myself. Indeed, I had a double disqualifica- 
tion exclusive of illness. First, as a Fellow Commoner, 
for they, being considered men of fortune, are not eligi- 
ble to a Scholarship or Fellowship involving a stipend- 
iary emolument. (This is not the case everyM'here; 
Fellow Commoners can be scholars at some of the Small 
Colleges). Secondly, as a hye-term incm, or one between 
two years. Although I had entered into residence at 
the same time with those men who were to go out in 
1844, my name had not been placed on the College 
Books, like theirs, previous to the commencement of 
1840. I had, therefore, lost a term, and for most pur- 
poses was considered a Freshman, though I had been in 
residence as long as any of the Junior Sophs.* In fact, 
I was between two years — a position rather advantageous 
to a man who comes to the University with little knowl- 
edge of it, for after measuring and testing his acquire- 
ments and capacity, he can choose whether he will go 
out in Honors a year earlier or later, and thus virtually 
degrade. ] And if he becomes a Scholar of Trinity, 
and wishes to go out along with the men with whom he 
entered into residence, he will have an additional year 
to read for his Fellowship, for though he may pass the 
Mathematical examination with them, his B. A. and 
consequently his M. A. come later than theirs. 

* Twelve terms are required to be kept by the Statutes, but 
that during -wMcli the name is entered, and that during -which 
the degree is taken, are included in the number, making only ten 
terms of actual residence. 

f Degrading, or going back a year, is not allowed except in 
case of illness (proved by a doctor's certificate). A man degrading 
for any other reason cannot go out afterwards in Honors. 



Five Years in an English University. 129 

At the time of the examination I was not in Cam- 
bridge at all. 1 had gone to Paris for medical advice, 
in company with my friend and former coach, who, hav- 
ing gained his Fellowship the October previous, and not 
being quite decided as to his future plans, was not a 
very regular resident, and had not overburdened him- 
self with pupils. He took care of me and bantered me 
alternately — a treatment which did me no harm in the 
end, and amused him greatly for the time. An invalid 
who cannot ascend two pairs of stairs without feeling 
the worse for it, is not exactly in a condition to appre- 
ciate or enjoy the pleasures of the gay French capital ; 
my stay was only long enough to consult (without bene- 
fit) the physician to whom I had been recommended. 

I shall not easily forget the difference between this 
and my next visit to Paris. It was in the spring of 
1845, when I was restored to almost perfect health, and 
had just been recruiting after my final examination (the 
Classical Tripos), by a month's idleness and generous 
living. For eight days I had been lionizing Belgium 
under the disadvantages of continual rain, and during 
those eight days had worn out more than one pair of 
boots over the pavements of Bruges, Ghent, and Ant- 
werp. The rainiest day of all was that on which I left 
Brussels in the Diligence for Paris, and a weary trip I 
had, arriving somewhere about midnight at my destina- 
tion. The next morning was Sunday. The sun shone 
out as brightly as if he had been undergoing repairs 
and decorations during his temporary retirement — warm 
but not sultry, as an April sun is wont to shine between 
the rains. My entresol looked out on the gardens of 
the Tuileries, which I could see were thronged with 
people in their holiday clothes. I began to have recol- 
lection of the time when I used to play exquisite in 
6* 



130 Five Years in mi English University. 

Broadway, and the thought occurred to me, as I pro- 
ceeded to overhaul my trunks, that a man who had 
hardly been out of his University for three years was 
likely to be somewhat behind the Parisian fashions — or 
any other. However, I did the best I could with my- 
self, and strolled into the crowd. It seemed as if all 
the inhabitants of Paris had poured into those gardens, 
— men, women, and children, all equally well dressed, 
gay, happy, and as sj)ai'kling as the beautiful fountains 
that were flashing in the sunshine. Such a contrast to 
my English associations, and to the Belgic mud and 
rain I had just encountered ! On, on I walked, through 
the Place de la Concorde, and up the Champs Elys6es, 
among the stalls, and the itinerant merchants, and the 
goat-omnibuses full of rejoicing children, and the chil- 
dren of a larger growth who looked so merry on every 
side ; and it was only at the foot of the Arc de I'Etoile 
that I began to feel the want of that necessary fortifica- 
tion for the day which consists in the matutinal repast. 
Certainly there is no city or place in the world like 
Paris for pure amusement, no such place to recruit after 
hard work, Avhen you have a few weeks to devote to 
idle enjoyment, good dinners, and collecting ajDparel for 
the outer man, and trinkets for your friends. How far 
it is a place for a foreigner to reside in who has any ra- 
tional and 2:)ermanent object of life in this world, or any 
serious thoughts of the next, is another question. 

The result of the Scholarship Examination had just 
been declared when I returned to Cambridge, and the 
Master's threat had been partially executed. Some 
Classical men of the third year, and one in particular of 
the second, had been thrown overboard for doing no 
Mathematics. Besides this, there Avas the usual number 
of disappointments. One of the unsuccessful candidates 



^ive Years m an English University. 131 

migrated — a common event on these occasions. A mi- 
gration is generally tantamomit to a confession of inferi- 
ority, an acknowledgment that the migrator is not likely 
to become a Fellow of his own College, and therefore 
takes refuge in another where a more moderate Degree 
will insure him a Fellowship. A great deal of this mi- 
gration goes on from John's to the Small Colleges; 
Sidney is almost a colony of second-rate Johnians ; at 
Christ's for three years successively, while I was an Un- 
dergraduate, the first man was an emigrant from John's. 
Sometimes the migrating man turns out a dark horse, 
and stands very high at last ; it proved so in the pres- 
ent case. More rarely it happens that a good man from 
the start migrates out of John's or Trinity to save him- 
self trouble, because at another College he wull be given 
a Fellowship merely for his Degree — that is, for his 
place in the Mathematical or Classical Tripos, without 
having to undergo the additional subsequent examina- 
tion. Sometimes, also, a Bachelor migrates for the same 
reason. The Small College Scholarships and Fellow- 
ships, it may be remarked, are not inferior to those of 
Trinity in pecuniary value ; on the contrary, they are 
generally more lucrative. It is a question of profit 
against honor.* 

The five or six Second-year men who gain Scholar- 
ships at their first trial are considered to have won some 

* There are some Bye-FellowsMps, however, in the small col- 
le"-es whose value is merely nominal — some £5 or £6 a year. 
These are in no great demand, and are usually given to inferior 
men. Sometimes they serve to keep good men from being s^iper- 
annuated (in Colleges where a man cannot be made Fellow after 
he has attained a certain [University] age), since a Bye-Fellow 
can be elected to one of the regular Fellovfships when a, vacancy 
occurs. 



132 Five Years in an English Univiersity. 

honor thereby, and to have a fair prospect of being 
among the best men of their year in the University. But 
this does not invariably follow. It frequently happens 
that some of them take a lower degree than those who 
are chosen Scholars at their second trial. Clever and in- 
dustrious men who have come up not too well prepared 
sometimes take nearly two years before the effect of 
their " coaching " shows itself, and then take a great 
start and develop rapidly in the third year ; while those 
who begin on an excellent preparation are not unfre- 
quently rendered lazy by their second year's triumph. 
The cases which have occurred of a man who missed his 
SchoIarshij)s altogether beating in the Senate House one 
who gained his at the first trial, may be in a great meas- 
ure attributed to this, want of success having piqued the 
former to exertion during the important " last Long," 
while success, perhaps unlooked for, at an early period 
has made the other careless and indolent. Something, 
however, is due to the difference of the examinations in 
some essential particulars. The narrower range of au- 
thors in the College Scholarship has been already no- 
ticed. But besides this, it contains no Greek composi- 
tion, and Greek composition in the Tripos counts more 
than Latin, and is indeed one-fifth of the whole examin- 
ation. Then the time is allotted on a much more liberal 
scale. You are allowed four hours for a less amount of 
work than that to which the University assigns three. 
In the Classical Tripos pace is of the greatest conse- 
quence ; a slow man stands a bad chance. In the Trinity 
Scholarship there is plenty of time to polish up. Some- 
times it happens that a Second-year Scholar does badly 
in the University examinations, and then acquits him- 
self well for the Trinity Fellowship. Three out of the 
six successful candidates in the present year thus fell and 



J<^ive ITears m mi English University. 133 

recovered themselves, owing to the combmed influence 
of both causes. 

When the new Scholars are declared, but a few 
weeks remain before the May examination. The printed 
lists of this show the telling of the pace in more ways 
than one. In the first place, the whole number of men 
in the year is sensibly diminished, about one-fifth hav- 
ing fallen off. While from a hundred to a hundred and 
twenty go in at the first year's examination, only from 
eighty to a hundred present themselves at that of the 
second.* Then the first class is cut down to half or 
less than half its original dimensions, averaging about 
eleven. This, however, is not altogether owing to the 
hard work having its efiect, and men giving up or break- 
ing down in the second year who were industrious and 
successful in their first. The examination this year is 
principally Mathematical. The only strictly Classical 
paper is one on some dialogue of Plato. There is an- 
other on the Diatessaron (the Four Gospels), chiefly 
" cram," and three short papers in " morals " — Paley's 
Natural Theology., Stewart's Outlines, and J^utleis 
Three Sermons on Hxunan Nature. These three, with 
the Eleventh Book of Euclid, are put into one long ses- 
sion of five hours. The other six papers are Mathemati- 
cal, Statics, Dynamics, Theory of Equations, Conic Sec- 
tions, Spherical Trigonometry, Difierential and Integral 
Calculus, and one paper of Problems on all the subjects. 
Now, it is quite possible for a Classical man, by polish- 
ing up carefully the Morals and Greek Testament and 
Plato (with the aid of the Euclid, which is given him as 
a sort of sop), to get marks enough for a First Class, 

* The number of posts, wgrotats, men absent on leave, &c., no 
more than seven or eight in any case, is about the same for both 
years. 



134 Five Years in an English University. 

especially as the standard is two hundred mai'ks lower 
than it was the first year. But the prize is not generally 
considered worth the expenditure of time. The votary 
of Classics is now beginning to keep a single eye on the 
Tripos, and is not easily drawn aside from his pursuit of 
a high place in that, and no one thinks the worse of him 
for being as low even as the Sixth Class in the May ex- 
amination. Indeed, so far from success now insuring it 
to him hereafter, to stand high in the second May is ra- 
ther against his chance of a good position on the Tripos, 
as the time which has been devoted to the particular 
" cram " is so much taken from his general practice in 
translation and composition. On the whole, there is not 
very hard working for this May as compared with the 
first, except among the best two or three in Mathemat- 
ics, who are beginning to struggle for their places, and 
with them it is rather the result of their contemporary 
reading with their pi'ivate tutors than of special study 
for the examination. If he who has been decidedly the 
best Mathematician in his first year comes out as decid- 
edly superior in this, he may be considered pretty safe 
for the highest Wranglership out of Trinity ; but if one 
or two others who were then close behind him are now 
a second time not far in his rear, there is a very good 
chance that their places may be changed next year, or 
at any rate in the Degree examination. Some men drop 
out of a good place this year by temporary misdirection 
and want of concentration of their powers, and not hav- 
ing their Mathematical abilities as yet fully developed 
by steady and exclusive application. These come up 
again in the third year, and are ultimately among the 
high Wranglers. From a variety of causes, the princi- 
pal of which have been enumerated, the standard of 



Five Years hi an JEngllsh Umversity. 135 

marks is comparatively low; frequently the first man 
has not more than fifteen hundred. 

Once or twice during the winter, as fallacious 
symptoms of recovery showed themselves, I had vague 
thoughts of reading for this examination ; but I never 
was well enough to master even the Classical subject, 
and after reading a few pages of the Phoedo, and attend- 
ing three or four lectures on it, was obliged to give up 
from sheer weakness and inability to sit an hour in a 
crowded room. It was a great deprivation to me, for 
our Plato lecturer was a remarkable man, and though 
his readings had not at that time the University celeb- 
rity which they afterwards acquired — for it was only the 
third year of his course — they had already deservedly 
attracted a large attendance. I was compelled to re- 
main in the busy place an idle looker-on. The dancer 
with a sprained ankle, the horseman with his bridle- 
hand disabled, the rower with a broken oar, the epicure 
condemned by his physician to hospital diet — are all to 
be pitied for their tantalizing plight ; but none of them 
are so deserving commiseration as a young man eager 
for the acquisition of knowledge, with everything around 
tempting him to it, and every one about him engaged 
in the pursuit, yet forced by the instinct of self-preser- 
vation to be systematically idle, and lie like a boat 
aground, seeing others float by him. Something of this 
has been my lot ever since ; I cannot even now write 
or study eight hours a day for six days consecutively 
(even with the most simple and abstemious regimen), 
without being quite worn out and obliged to strike 
work at the end of the week. 

The examination was over and the students dispers- 
ing. One who has continued to be a reading man up 
to the end of the second year is generally pretty safe 



136 Five Years in an English University. 

to go on as such, but it not unfrequently hajipens that 
he now drops the intention of being a " double man," 
and concentrates himself upon Mathematics. I was left 
for a while almost alone. Some were going on reading 
parties, some taking a holiday before settling down to 
their work in the " Long." About this time I did one 
wise thing, which was to " throw physic to the dogs," 
and thenceforward I began slowly to improve. Recov- 
ery being evidently a work of time, I resolved to stay 
qiaietly where I was, and some mental occupation being 
necessary, began to read a little again merely for diver- 
sion. First I attacked Aristophanes, as the most amus- 
ing author, and working a couple of hours every morn- 
ing, went through seven plays, which, added to my for- 
mer knowledge, enabled me to say that I had read the 
old Comedian all through ; and though, from the circum- 
stances of the case, my reading was not very thorough, 
still it laid a foundation for future revision, and I had 
mastered the author's vocabulary, no small part of his 
difficulty. My work was done at a standing desk; I 
was not able to stoop or bend over a table. Very many 
of the students, even those in the best health, have, as a 
means of keeping so, adopted the plan of reading on the 
feet, which I believe is also very common in Germany. 
It is certainly the healthiest way, and after a few trials 
not at all fatiguing even to an invalid, though one is apt 
to think it must be before trying it. In the evening I 
used to take Horace and revive my old recollections of 
the Latin and Epistles, using an edition with copious 
notes, which I could look over while leaning back in my 
arm-chair, and seldom having occasion for a dictionary. 
This was light occupation, in which an hour, or some- 
times more, passed away pleasantly. After finishing in 
this way the review of Horace, I took up the Tusculan 



Five Years in an JEiiglish University. 137 

Questions, the First Book of Avhich I had read before 
(indeed had stood an examination at Yale on the whole 
five), but even in that First Book I had enough to learn. 
Still the verbal difficulties were not numerous ; and to 
read Cicero leisurely, translating his elegant Latin into 
the choicest English yoii can find, is an interesting and 
not unprofitable occupation. After Aristophanes, I 
took up Thucydides, and read the Sixth and Seventh 
Books, but not in a way to know much about them — • 
indeed, it is not until after having gone over it for the 
third time, and that very carefully, that you can feel at 
all sure of any difficult passage in that author. With 
the Hippolytus of Euripides I did more, getting it up 
well, and not merely in a philological, but also in a liter- 
ary point of view, for the purpose of comparing it with 
Seneca's Hippolytus and Racine's Phedre, which I read 
immediately after, and made a comparative synopsis of 
these three plays on the same subject. This sketch I 
found among my papers while writing these pages, and 
insert it here, as it may not be without interest to some 
readers. I have never seen the three plays collated in 
detail elsewhere. [A. W. Schlegel has compared Phe- 
dre with Euripides' Hij)polytus.] 

ETJEIPIDES' HIPPOLYTUS. 

The scene is laid at Troezene. 

Aphrodite prologizes. 

Hippolytxis brings a crown of flowers to Artemis 
(thence the name of the play 'I-ttc^Awt-o? Srf^ai'^^opof). An at- 
tendant advises him to pay homage to Venus, which he 
refuses to do. 

The chorus mourns the condition of Phaedra, and 



138 Five Years in an English University. 

wonders whether it is caused by some offended Deity, 
or by bad news of her husband. 

The nurse extorts with difficulty her secret from 
Phaedra. The Queen cannot bring herself to pronounce 
the fatal name, but draws it from the nurse by a ques- 
tion. She confesses to the chorus her irresistible pas- 
sion, and resolves to die. The nurse endeavors to per- 
suade her that her desires may be gratified, but failing to 
do so, pretends that she has a potion which can alleviate 
them. The chorus sings the power of Aphrodite as il- 
lustrated in the cases of lole and Semele. 

Hippolytus enters reviling the nurse, who implores 
him not to betray her. Here occurs the famous line, 

■f] ■y7Maa' ojiuiiox^ ?) Se fpfjv avu/xoTog. 
(My tongue tas sworn it, but my mind has not.) 

He accuses the whole race of women, and leaves them 
in horror. Phsedra reproaches the nurse. The chorus 
laments her fate. She hangs herself 

Theseus returns from Delos whither he had gone as 
a dsupdg. He finds a letter from his wife accusing Hip- 
polytus of having forced her. He imprecates the curse 
on him. Hippolytus is loaded with reproaches and driv- 
en away. The chorus prays for a humble fortune, and 
laments his banishment. 

A messenger announces the death of Hippolytus (the 
monster is simply described as ravpog aypiov repac). The 
chorus confesses the power of Aphrodite and Eros. 

Artemis appears, and discloses the ti'uth to Theseus. 
Hippolytus is brought in dying. He forgives his fath- 
er, and Ai'temis declares that she will avenge him, and 
that due honors shall be paid to his memory. 



Five Years in an English University . 139 

THE PSEUDO-SENECA'S HIPPOLTTUS. 

It is the most simple of the three plays in its action- 
The scene is laid at Athens (not Troezene as in Eu- 
ripides and Racine). 

ACT I. 

Hippolytus gives his servants directions for the chase. 
Phaedra and the nurse enter. The fatal secret of Phte- 
dra's passion is already known to the latter. She ex- 
horts the Queen to subdue it. Phtedra still clings to the 
idea that it may be gratified, but at length, convinced by 
the nurse, prepares to kill herself The nurse is now 
overcome and departs to broach the subject to Hippoly- 
tus. The chorus sings the power of love. 

ACT II. 

PhjTedra directs her servants to attire her as an Ama- 
zon. The nurse implores the aid of Hecate (!) and ad- 
dresses Hippolytus, advising him to taste the joys of 
social life. He replies with a beautiful panegyric on rus- 
tic felicity, one of those purpurei 2)anni which frequent- 
ly occur in the pseudo-Seneca, winding up with a gener- 
al condemnation of the fair sex. Phredra enters and 
faints in his arms. She avows her love herself. He is 
about to slay her, but at her entreaties spares her life, 
throws away his sword as polluted by her touch, and 
flies horror-struck. She cries for help, and accuses him 
of having violated his step-mother. The chorus prays 
that the beauty of Hippolytus may not prove his ruin. 

ACT III. 

Theseus returns from Hades, where he has been four 
years. He finds Phtedra about to slay herself. She her- 



140 Five Years in an English University. 

self accuses Hippolytus. Theseus imprecates the curse 
of Neptune upon him. Hi^ppolytiis and Theseus do not 
meet. The chorus complains that the gods do not reg- 
ulate the affairs of men so carefully as they do those of 
the inanimate world. 

ACT IV. 

A messenger announces the death of Hippolytus. 
The monster is described with great minuteness of de- 
tail. The question of Theseus which leads to this des- 
cription (" Quis habitus ille corporis vasti fuit ? ") has a 
bad effect, as it breaks the unity of the narrative. The 
death of Hippolytus is also described in detail. He is 
represented as literally torn to pieces and his body scat- 
tered in so many fragments that it is impossible to find 
them all. The chorus sings the instability of fortune, 
introducing, inter alia, this queer conceit : 

" Metuens coelo Jupiter alto 
Vicina petit " (strikes the places tliat approach, it in height.) 

ACT V. 

Phaedra confesses her falsehood, and kills herself be- 
fore Theseus, who laments his condition, and puts to- 
gether the pieces of his son^s body for hurial. This is 
enough to show that the play was only intended for the 
closet. 

The chief peculiarities of this play are, 1st, that the 
author makes no attempt to diminish Phtedra's culpabil- 
ity, but rather stx-ives to set it forth in all its odiousness. 
She laments not so much the unholiness of her passion, 
as that it meets with no return. ISTor does the nurse 
prevail on her to do wrong (as in Euripides and Racine), 
but on the contrary she persuades the unwilling nurse to 
aid her. 2d, that the nurse knows Phaidra's love from 



Five T'ears in an English University. 141 

the first. 3cl, that Theseus and Hippolytus do not meet 
after the accusation. 
Three great defects. 



EACINE'S PHEDEE. 

Racine has followed Euripides more closely than the 
pseudo-Seneca did. 

The scene is laid at Troezene. 

There is a secondary plot, the love of Hippolytus for 
Aricia, the sole surviving descendant of Pallas. 

ACT I. 

Hippolytus declares, to his preceptor Theramenes, 
his intention of going in search of his father, from which 
the other vainly endeavors to dissuade him. 

CEnone, Phaedra's nurse, wrings from her the fatal 
secret. (It is disclosed by means of a question as in 
Euripides.) Phtedra declares that she has long strug- 
gled against her passion, but in vain, and must die. 

Panope, an attendant, announces the death of The- 
seus. CEnone suggests a marriage with Hippolytus. 

ACT II. 

Hippolytus, who has asked an interview with Aricia, 
declares his intention of making her Queen of Athens, 
himself taking Troezene, and Phaedra's son, Crete. He 
also confesses his love. 

Phaedra, who has likewise asked an interview with 
him, confesses her passion herself (here Racine has fol- 
lowed the pseudo-Seneca). He does not load him with 
reproaches, but what he says is to the point. She im- 
plores him to kill her, or at least to lend her his sword, 
which she takes. Qilnone carries her off. Theramenes 



142 Fwe Tears in an English University. 

announces that Phaedra's son has been chosen king, but 
that there is a rumor of the return of Theseus. 

ACT III. 

Phaedra and CEnone resolve to try Hippolytus with 
the offer of empire. On learning that Theseus has re- 
turned, QEnone persuades the Queen to let her accuse 
Hippolytus of having attempted to violate her. 

Theseus returns from JEpirus, whence he has escaped 
from being imprisoned there six months by the Molos- 
sian king, whose dogs had devoured Pirithous. (Racine 
here follows the Euemerizers.) Phaedra shuns his em- 
brace, and Hippolytus declares his intention of quitting 
Trcezene. 

ACT lY. 

CEnone accuses Hippolytus. Theseus reproaches 
him and imprecates the curse on him. Hippolytus in 
defending himself confesses his love for Aricia, and hints 
that Phaedra by her descent is more likely to be moved 
by unnatural passions than himself (He may say this, 
not being bound by an oath as in Euripides.) Phaedra, 
on learning that Hippolytus loves Aricia, becomes des- 
perate and drives QEnone from her presence. 

xiCT V. 

Hippolytus promises Aricia that he will wed her at 
a temple beyond the gates. She endeavors to convince 
Theseus of his error. He begins to doubt and demands 
CEnone. But she has drowned herself Theramenes 
announces the death ot HijDpolytus. (The monster is 
described with much spirit, more minutely than by Eu- 
ripides, less so than by the pseudo-Seneca.) Hippolytus 
is represented as having lived only long enough to ad- 



Five Years in an English University. 143 

dress a few dying words to his preceptor. Phaedra 
confesses the falsity of her accusation and dies, having 
poisoned herself. Theseus declares his intention to 
adopt Aricia. 

All such diversions would have been illegitimate for 
a regular reading man, but I read only for healthy men- 
tal occupation, and becavise I could not leave the place 
which I should have been too glad to abandon, could I 
by any possibility have reached home. 

As my work, even in the dilettante manner in which 
it was carried on, had to be limited to less than four 
hours a day, some of the time, during which I was forced 
to be idle on principle, iised to hang heavy on my hands. 
Miscellaneous novel reading I had been pretty well sur- 
feited with in my younger days in New Haven. Exer- 
cise, I could take none worth speaking of; I could not 
ride, nor nm, nor row, nor even handle a billiard cue, 
and my walk was not more than a saunter. I used to 
stroll about the College groimds, thinking of my native 
city, which distance, and the impossibility of returning 
thither, had invested with the color of romance and sen- 
timent for me. When I received a letter or newspaper 
from over the water, it was a white day in my calendar. 
The next greatest pleasure was the hebdomadal appear- 
ance of Punch, then in its very prime. I can recollect 
every article of Thackeray's, and the circumstances un- 
der which I read them — the hour of the day (it was just 
after my scanty dinner that the paper used to arrive), 
the green-curtained window looking out on the grounds, 
the big arm-chair I sat in, and the little compromise be- 
tween a stand and a table in front of it. It happened 
that there were fewer men up this Long than usual, and 
of the Dons besides the Librarian, only one Fellow, 



144 Five Years in an English University. 

who was supposed to be at work on an endless book al- 
ways advertised by the University booksellers, but never 
likely to apj^ear in actual type. Even his comiDany I 
could seldom enjoy, being scarcely ever able to dine in 
the Hall. 

There was one event which broke in on the monoto- 
ny of this vacation. The Commencement, usually little 
more than a form, was made a grand show by the Instal- 
lation of a new Chancellor. The Chancellor is the nom- 
inal Executive of the University, but all his duties are 
performed by the Vice- Chancellor, one of the Heads 
chosen in rotation, so that the office is merely an honor 
to compliment some nobleman with. The Commence- 
ment takes place during the first week in July, and is 
the nominal ending of the Easter Term, which has vir- 
tually concluded a month before. The real business 
done is conferring the M. A. degrees, and reading the 
prize compositions — that is to say, the Classical ones 
and the English poem, for the recitation of the Theologi- 
cal Essays would be rather a tedious affair, as they some- 
times make a tolerably sized book. The Latin Essays 
are read a few days before Commencement. Almost the 
only parties in attendance are those personally interested. 
A few of the reading men up for the Long may drop 
into the galleries, and some straggling towns-j)eople be 
in the body of the house. But on this occasion the 
scene was changed. Cambridge was turned into a 
show-place for that day only. Gold-embroidered gowns 
of noblemen mingled with the red gowns of Doctors 
of Divmity and Physic. Crowds of well-dressed stran- 
gers thronged the beautiful College grounds, looking 
as unamused as the great Anglo-Saxon race does when 
it gets together in a crowd. The Senate-House was 



Five Y'ears in an English University. 145 

thronged. All manner of big-wigs graced the scene 
and augmented the dignity of the Duke of Northum- 
berland. Some one of the royal family was there — I 
forget who, but recollect two officers pushing the peo- 
ple out of his way. Prince Albert came uj) to be made 
something or other, and put on some extraordinary 
dress. Illustrious foreigners were not wanting. Everett 
and Bunsen were created D. C. L.'s, and had red gowns 
put over their diplomatic uniforms. The scandalous 
conduct of some members of the other University to 
our distinguished countryman when the same degree 
was conferred on him there some time later, is unhappi- 
ly notorious, but it is not so generally known that a dif- 
ficulty — though of a different sort, founded not on reli. 
gious but on political grounds — was near occi^rring at 
Cambridge. Some precise member of the Senate start- 
ed this objection : " We give Honorary Degrees only 
to persons of royal blood, and Ambassadors are admis- 
sible to them merely in their quality of representatives 
of crowned heads. Now, Mr. Everett does not repre- 
sent a crowned head; how, then, can we give him a 
Degree?" Fortunately some one recollected that the 
American Minister was a D. C. L. of Trinity College, 
Dublin, members of which are admitted ad eunclem gra- 
durn at Cambridge, which solved the difficulty at once ; 
indeed, it was settled so quietly that not many people 
were aware of its existence. 

The unusual throng made the winners of the Browne 
medals, the Porson, the Camden, and the Chancellor's 
English medal, extraordinary lions, as instead of an au- 
dience of half a dozen old Dons, and twice as many Un- 
dergraduates, they had a crowded house of beauty, no- 
biUty, and fashion to recite before. The Browne med- 
7 



146 Five Years in an English University. 

als are three in number, for an ode in Latin Alcaics, an 
ode in Greek SajDphics, and a brace of epigrams in Greek 
and Latin. The Porson prize (of books) is for a trans- 
lation from Shakspeare into Greek Iambics ; the Camden 
medal for an exercise in Latin Hexameters. The subjects 
of these exercises are announced at the end of the First 
Term, and the candidates have about three months to 
write them in. These prizes are sometimes taken by 
the best men in the year, sometimes by second-rate ones. 
The continually recurring reason that they make too 
much inroad into the preparation for the Tripos, prevents 
many of the first Classics ' in the year from ti'ying for 
them, particularly in the case of the Greek ode, which 
is an altogether out-of-the-way exercise, Greek Sap- 
phics not being written in any of the examinations. On 
the whole, I believe the Porson was considered the 
most honorable, and there was more competition for it 
among the good men. But there is a generally prevail- 
ing idea in the University that success in an extensive 
examination on general knowledge of language, not 
specially prepared for, is a fairer test of merit and abili- 
ty than gaining a prize which has been elaborately worked 
up in private ; and it not unfrequently happens that the 
Senior Classic has never written for a medal or Porson. 
The general run of the English poems may be guessed 
at. There are some good raen among the Prize Poets 
— Praed, Macaulay, Tennyson. The last was for a long 
time the only one who broke loose from the trammels 
of Heroic couplets. He wrote in blank verse with a 
forged motto from Chapman. It was said that he gained 
the j)rize by mistake. Smyth, the Professor of History, 
had been long looked up to by the other examiners, who 
were accustomed to be guided by his decision. Hav- 



J^ive Years in an English University. 147 

ing lit on Tennyson's poem, and being mucli pnzzlecl by- 
it (it loas something out of the common, and just the 
thing to astonish an ancient Don) he pencilled on the 
outside, " Look at this ! " meaning thereby merely to 
call the attention of his brother examiners to it as a cu- 
riosity. But it happened that he was taken ill or called 
away from Cambridge on business, and the others were 
obliged to meet and decide in his absence. His note of 
admiration Avas mistaken for a sign of approval, and the 
palm adjudged to the future Laureate. Such is the le- 
gend ; some say that the poet's apostolic friends invent- 
ed it to palliate the discredit of his having gained a prize 
poem. Some years ago another bold youth wrote a 
poem in Spenserian stanzas, which took the prize. This 
broke the charm, and a variety of metres have since 
been attempted with success — the success that is of get- 
ting the Chancellor's medal. 

On the present occasion the six prizes Avere divided 
among three men, and five of them between two of our 
year. The Greek ode and epigrams were carried oif by 
the Trinity man Avho had headed the first May, and Avas 
one of the three favorites (all from our College) for 
Senior Classic ; the tAvo Latin prizes, and the English 
poem by a Small-Colleger, whom this triple success in- 
troduced to the University world in which he was des- 
tined to make a distinguished figure. 

As the Long vacation drew to a close, I gave a symp- 
tom of returning vitality by passing my Little- Go. 
There is a post-examination for this in the beginning of 
October — a sort of appendix to the regular one for the 
benefit of jDlucked men and aegrotats. As the former 
constitute the greater portion of the thirty or forty who 
present themselves, the few reading-men Avhom sickness 



148 Five Years in an English University. 

or other accident has placed in their company, show par- 
ticularly well by comparison. A man passed at this ex- 
amination who had been plucked three times. One does 
not know whether such a person's want of capacity is 
more worthy of pity, or his fortitude and perseverance 
of admiration. 



Five Years in an English University. 149 



THIRD TEAR. — A CHANGE OF POSITION. — SCATTERING 
SHOT, THAT SOME MAY HIT. — COLLEGE DECLAMA- 
TIONS. — LITERARY FRIENDS. — " THE APOSTLES." — 
ACCIDENTS OF THE MATHEMATICAL TRIPOS, AND OF 
THE UNIVERSITY SCHOLARSHIP. — A DESERTER FROM 
THE FIELD OF BATTLE. — AN OUTSIDER WINS. — UNI- 
VERSITY LECTURES. — PLATO LECTURES. — UNION 
ROWS. — DISAPPOINTMENTS AND CONSOLATIONS. — 
A VISIT TO OXFORD. 

'Ov 7r<i C(^LV t^iTTi'Xov at/ia Aaifzdvuv. 

Inceuti Frag, apud Platonem. 

" Abiit, evasit, excessit, erupit." — Cicero. 

" They love the winner of the race, 
If only he who prospers, looks 
At prizes with a simple grace."— Anon. 

Quand on n'a pas ce que I'on aime, 
II faut aimer ce que I'on a. 

" We start, for soul is wanting there." — Byron. 

WHEN the collegiate year recommenced once more, 
I threw ofi" the blue and silver, and turned Pen- 
sioner. It was rather an uncommon step, but there had 
been a precedent for it long before. A friend of mine 
after one year's experience of Fellow- Commoner life, had 
changed his grade, partly from pecuniary motives, and 
pai'tly to be eligible to a Scholarship. I had both these 
inducements, and a third still more pressing — my health, 
which made it necessary for me to shun the luxurious din- 
ners of the upper table. It was coming down a step in life, 
and a sort of confession of poverty on the face of it, but 



150 Five Years in an English University. 

I had the satisfaction of finding that none of my old ac- 
quaintance among the Dons, to whose friendship I at- 
tached any value, changed their conduct and bearing to- 
wards me in the least. And I have generally observed 
this to be the case, that when a man freely confesses his 
pecuniary inability to maintain a certain position, he is 
not held at any discount for it, but his honest determin- 
ation is rather applauded. It is your keeping up ap- 
pearances, Spanish grandee shift and deceit, trying to be 
what one is not, that provoke sneer and coldness. My 
most intimate friends generally congratulated me on the 
step, as now having a better opportunity to profit by 
the advantages which the main body of the students en- 
joyed. 

Being now able to work a little in earnest, I started 
on the principle of shying for several things at once, in 
the hope of getting some of them ; a proceeding which 
better suited my physical condition, more fitted to ac- 
complish small sej^arate pieces of work than to aim stead- 
ily at a remote end, and a task of indefinite amount. To 
a Trinity student in his third year, more opportunities 
of this sort are open than in his first two. He has a 
chance for all the University prizes open to the Fresh- 
men and Junior SojAs, with additional training for them, 
and the Members' Prizes for Latin Essays besides ; and 
in his own College, an English Declamation, a Latin 
Declamation, and an English Essay. I determined in the 
coming year to make shots for all these four, and also 
for a College Scholarship, and a First Class in the May ; 
and as I ultimately attained three out of the six objects, 
the speculation was not altogether a bad one. 

The Declamations are what in Yale College language 
would be termed Disputes. At the beginning of the 
Michaelmas Term a number of questions are given out 



Five Years hi an English University. 151 

" on suLjects connected with the History of England," 
pay the terms of the founder of this prize; but as the in- 
tervention of England in EurojDean aftairs has taken a 
pretty wide range, so these questions take a pretty wide 
range in European history. Every third-year-man chooses 
his question, and writes on it, giving in his exercise at 
the end of the term ; during the next term ten or twelve 
of the best are publicly recited in the chapel, and about 
the time of the Scholarship examination silver goblets 
are adjudged to the best three, the first worth £20, the 
others £10 each. To the best two Latin Declamations 
prizes of books are adjudged. The "moral, antiquarian, 
or literary " subject of the English Essay, is publicly no- 
tified at the beginning of the Collegiate year, when the 
prize for the former year's essay is adjudged, and the ex- 
ercises need not be given in till next July, so there is no 
lack of time to the Senior Soph who makes a point of 
getting it. But he must take care not to attempt com- 
passing his object by mere quantity and weight of pa- 
lmer. That would be fatal to his success, even were his 
production in other respects worthy of favor. It is dis- 
tinctly required that the essay be not of greater length 
than can be conveniently read in half an hour ; and much 
shorter limits are assigned to the Declamations. Two 
cases came under my observation where very good men 
lost their chance because they had " written a book," as 
one of the examiners expressed it. Questions referring 
to the History and Policy of the Stuarts, the Wars of 
William and Anne, the History and Benefits of Colonies, 
the Crusades, the Monastic institutions, the Social, Po- 
litical, and Literary condition of the English people at 
different periods, distinguished characters in English 
History compared with one another, or with illustrious 
foreigners ; such were the ordinary subject-matter of the 



152 Five Years in an English University. 

English declamations. The Latin ones wei-e usually on 
some topic of Classical History. For the English Es- 
say I recollect such subjects as the Life of Erasm,us^ the 
Infktence of Alexander the Greafs Conquests on the 
Arts atid the Literature of Europe, the Platonic element 
in Cicero'' s Philosophy, the Abuse of Political Theories, 
the Military Orders of the Middle Ages, the Colonial 
Policy of the Ancients. They generally lead to the his- 
torical or antiquarian, but are sometimes purely literary 
or philosophic. The prize, ten pounds, is generally con- 
verted (part of it at least) into books by the prizeman. 

The competition for these English prizes is remarka- 
bly moderate ; sometimes, indeed I may say generally, 
there are not more than three or four competitors for 
the essay. Even the Latin Declamations are not always 
taken by the best Classics of the year. 

The Members' Prizes of fifteen guineas each, given 
by the representatives of the University in Parliament, 
are four in number, two open to all Bachelors, two to all 
Senior Sophs, or all men toho have resided seven terms, 
even though Bye-term men like myself The subjects 
are on all possible topics — historical, moral, theological, 
litei-ary, philosophical. 

The preparation of these exercises, coming as they 
did successively, and not all at once, did not hinder me 
from going on with my more regular classical work to a 
certain extent. I put myself under my old friend and 
coach, Travis, (I suppose I may as well continue to call 
him by that name), and worked up two plays of JEschy- 
lus, besides reading Juvenal (not too thoroughly, as I 
afterwards found by sad experience in the Tripos), and 
by myself I ran over some Cicero and Livy, to get up 
my Latin style for the Declamation and Members' Prize. 
Still, being as yet able to average only about four hours' 



Five Years in an English University. 153 

work daily, and compelled to abstain from all study at 
night, I had to cast about for ways of passing my even- 
ings amusingly, and not altogether unprofitably. 

And first I took up the " Union " again, for I was not 
only able to talk, but to make myself heard, and the 
moderate excitement of making a speech proved rather 
a beneficial exercise. 

Any American Collegian who may chance to read" 
this book, will have wondered long ago why I have said 
nothing about the " speakers " and " writers." Equal if 
not greater would be the surprise of an Englishman, 
when told of the important position which these two 
classes of students — or as he would deem them non- 
students, non-reading men — occupy at an American Col- 
lege. 

" Only think," said Travis once to an acquaintance af- 
ter I had been trying to explain to him the state of 
things at Yale College, " it is there just as if we were 
to consider the President of the Union a greater man 
than the Senior Wrangler." " How strange ! " replied 
the other. Writing English as a means of acquiring 
reputation or honor is almost unknown among the Un- 
dergraduates. The only incentives to it are Declama- 
tion Prizes in a few of the Colleges, for the University 
prizes for Moral and Theological Dissertations go by 
learning more than style. To tell a Cantab that such an 
Undergraduate had a fine English style, would seem as 
irrelevant as the information that he knew a good deal 
of law or physic. Even when a precocious politician 
contributes to the London papers (as one did about this 
time), it does not materially enhance his reputation. I 
was once talking to a friend about my exercises for the 
Trinity prizes, and how difficult I found it to practise 
one style for an oration and another for an essay ; he 
7* 



154 Five Years in an English University. 

was miicli surprised that I had had sufficient practice in 
English composition even to attempt such a variety. 
This same man understood jjerfectly the diiference be- 
tween Aristotelian and Thucydidean Greek prose, and 
could wi'ite either as occasion required. With public 
speaking the case was neai'ly similar. Conceive one gen- 
eral debating Society for the whole University, which 
has about twelve hundred Undergraduates in residence 
for two terms, and sixteen hundred for the third. What 
protracted debates our students would have in such a 
case, and what scrambling for the seven offices every 
term. But at Cambridge not half the Undergraduates 
are members, and many of these are attracted solely by 
the reading-room. The debates are sometimes adjourned 
in half an hour for Avant of speakers ; the offices frequent- 
ly go a begging, and at a contested election there are 
seldom more than three hundred and fifty votes polled, 
and not often that number. Occasionally, however, on 
exciting public questions of the day, an animated debate 
would be got up, and I have heard very good amateur 
speaking. The Union has its periodical fits of brief ex- 
citement, and at this particular 2:)eriod its afiairs were at 
a favorable crisis. The rooms had just been newly fit- 
ted up and enlarged, and there happened to be an influx 
of men in the new Freshman year who were just the 
very persons to give the thing a start. These were of 
no great numerical force ; but a few men with a will can 
do a great deal in such matters. Poor Henry F. Hal- 
lam was one of them, though he seldom spoke in the 
Union himself But he was instrumental in getting up 
a small debating society of about forty members, called 
the Historical, at which tolerably lively debates were 
kept up, and the members of which attended the Union 
pretty regularly, so as always to form the nucleus of an 



Five ITeai's in an English Vhiversity. 155 

audience there. Another was a peer's son, now a mem- 
ber of Parliament, who had a love of public affairs and 
a precocious seriousness almost American. A third was 
a Dissenter, somewhat above the average age of Fresh- 
men (two peculiarities which made him a character at 
once), having a flow of speech and a faculty of thinking 
on his legs Avhich an Englishman seldom possesses unless 
he is a professional talker — ^. e., a barrister or an M. P. 
of long standing — and not always even then. There 
were other asj^irants to the name of orator, ambitious 
Small- College men, and a hard-working Trinity Scholar 
or two carried away by the novel impulse. We got up 
stirring political debates — democracy against aristocra- 
cy, toleration against church exclusiveuess, old common 
sense against Young England — and soon had crowded 
houses for nights in succession. A debate on such an 
evening was an animated and interesting sight. The 
doors were open to all University men, members or not, 
and the audience amounted at times to four or five hun- 
dred. The English style of speaking and of hearing is 
very different from ours. Expressions of approbation 
and disapprobation on the part of the audience being 
frequent, the speaker aims more at points than with us, 
and when he has said a good thing, or what he means to 
be such, looks out for the hear ! hear ! as a matter of 
course. It is much more agreeable to him (except at 
the very beginning of his career) than our solemn silence, 
The applause cheers him, the disapprobation piques him; 
both rest him and give him time to take breath-^or a 
glass of water — and arrange himself for a fresh start. 

Whenever there was a contested election for the 
Presidency of the Union, it turned more on the person- 
al popularity than on the actual services and reputation 
of the candidate, and generally came to be a contest 



156 Five Years in an English University. 

between the reading and " rowing " men. When it came 
to a hard tight, the former usually succeeded; the 
same industry and ability that aided them in their stud- 
ies generally enabling them to triumph in the canvass. 
There was but one exception to this rule. When the 
rowing men were lucky enough to get hold of a title who 
would run for them, they were safe to win. There is no 
resisting John Bull's lordship. Charles J. Yaughan, one 
of Arnold's favorite pupils, a University Scholar and 
Senior Classic, at present Head-master of Harrow, and 
altogether a gentleman of great abilities and merits, was 
put up for the Union presidency when an Undergradu- 
ate, and beaten by a Johnian nonentity who had Sir be- 
fore his name ; and the exception was verified a second 
time at my own expense this very year. 

But as the Union and Historical only took up two 
nights in the week, there was some other amusement to 
be looked out for, as my friends who used to hold what 
at one time we called " Whig parliaments " in my rooms, 
now that I was able to take care of myself, had left me 
to myself In some cases it was only transferring their 
trouble from one place to another, as I would lounge 
about into the rooms of those whom I knew for general 
literary conversation — even to talk Calendar if there 
was nothing else to do. Sometimes I would tumble in 
upon a reading set who were amusing themselves in their 
way, after a hard day's fagging at Composition or Math- 
ematics, with Aristophanes or Ovid, in a knot of three 
or four together, making an extempore addition to their 
temporary club. But this was too much like work for 
me, and my style of reading and comment too desultory 
for them, so I did not practise it often. It was more in 
my way to find some one who had done his day's work 
entirely so far as Classics and Mathematics were con- 



Five Years in an English University. 157 

cerned, and chat quietly over endless cups of tea — or 
even potations more generous. Now at Trinity there 
was more cultivation of general literature than at any 
other College, and there were an unusual number of 
Freshmen at this time who took an interest in rhetoric 
and public speaking as well as subjects of general liter- 
ature, in which matters I had some reputation, on the 
strength of my country ; so that there was not much 
difficulty in finding places to spend my evenings in.* 
Several of the men with whom I was most intimate, be- 
longed either at this time or subsequently to a society 
which, although a strictly private club, and in no way 
putting itself prominently forward, has exerted and does 
exert a very considerable influence on the literary train 
of thought in the University of Cambridge, and on the 
opinions of the English literary public — the Cambridge 
Apostles. 

There is an association founded by the contempora- 
ries of the late John Sterling, and called from him the 
Sterling Club. It comprises among its members men dis- 
tinguished in various and somewhat different walks of 
life : theologians, like Maurice of King's College, London, 
and Stanley, Arnold's biographer; poets like Tennyson 
and Milnes; novelists like Thackeray; some universal 
geniuses. They are mostly Cambridge men, Stanley 
and some few Oxonians — Thomas Cai-lyle, I believe, the 
only non-university man among them. By way of school 
or nursery to this club, there was a club at Cambridge 
of Undergraduates, popularly called the Apostles (it was 
said because they had usually thirteen members in resi- 
dence). Some of them took high Honors, more gener- 

* The English now rather exaggerate our facility of speaking 
in public, and believe that every American is bom a debater. 



158 Five Years in an English University. 

ally in Classics than in Mathematics ; some of them did 
not compete for Honors at all ; but they all had a certain 
fondness for literary and metaphysical pursuits in com- 
mon, and none of them were solely reading men. They 
were always on the look-out for eligible members to sup- 
ply the place of those who had left the University and 
stepped into the regular club, and were very ingenious in 
making the acquaintance of men that were in any re- 
spect lions, and drawing them out to ascertain if they 
were of apostolic material. Sometimes they were very 
successful in catching celebrities just as they began to 
develop themselves. At one time, for four years in suc- 
cession, the University Scholar was an apostle; but 
shrewd peoj)le remarked that in three cases the lucky 
man had been elected into the club after it was pretty 
certain that he would be University Scholar. These 
men did not make any parade of mystery, or aim at no- 
toriety by any device to attract attention ; they did not 
have special chambers for meeting, with skeletons in the 
corner, and assemble in them with the secresy of con- 
spirators ; nor did they wear breastpins with initials of 
bad Greek sentences, or other symbolic nonsense on 
them, as our young Collegians do. They did not at- 
tempt to throw any awful veil of secresy over their pro- 
ceedings ; it was known that they met to read essays 
and hold discussions, with occasional interludes of sup- 
per. I have more than once seen the compositions 
which were prepared for these meetings : the authors 
did not seem to think that either the interests or dignity 
of their club suffered materially from letting an outsider 
so far behind the scenes. 

Their immediate and tangible influence in the Uni- 
versity amounted to just nothing. But imperceptibly 
they exercised much. Their association together had a 



Five Years in mi English University. 159 

great mutual effect on the formation of tlieir minds and 
characters, and thus indirectly on the whole body of 
men, since an apostle was not cut off from his other 
friendships by belonging to this Society ; and the parent 
club taken in connection with its embryo, formed a most 
innocent and effective camaraderie. 

It is just possible that some of my apostolic friends 
would not be over-flattered at the application of the 
term innocent to them, as they usually prided themselves 
on being leery ^ and having such virtue as they possessed, 
rather Platonically by tiriarijiir] than through original in" 
stinct and want of experience like a child or a woman. 
But what I mean by calling the Sterling Club an innocent 
and effective camaraderie., is that its members, control- 
ling as they did among them many avenues of approach 
to the public and means of influencing the public mind, 
were able to benefit one another, and help on one anoth- 
er's reputation very much, while at the same time they 
did so with a fair and legitimate partisanship, not by 
blowing up factitious renown with wholesale puffery, or 
in any way imposing on the public and corrupting their 
taste and judgment. Thus when a member of the club 
publishes, one of the fraternity has a footing in the Ed- 
inburgh, another in the Quarterly, a third in Fraser, a 
fourth in Blackwood, and so on — among them all there 
is a pretty good chance that his beauties will not be hid, 
or the reading community allowed to overlook his mer- 
its. Nor is it by such formal and systematic efforts only 
that they set forth his claims. In ordinaiy casual con- 
versation they have continual oppoi'tunities of putting 
them forward. One man, I remembei*, who was a re- 
markably good reader (for a small room), used to have 
a knack of bringing in Tennyson so as to read portions 
of him, and the jioet lost nothing m his mouth. Tenny- 



160 Five Years in mi English University. 

son and Thackeray may be particularized as owing much 
to their comrades for setting them prominently before 
the world. But in all this there is no false pretence or 
deception. Let any, for instance, look at Sterling's re- 
view of Teimyson in the Quarterly, or the review in the 
Edinburgh also by a brother apostle ; there is no daub- 
ing or whitewashing in them, no putting on the butter 
of adulation with the knife of profusion — none of the 
extravagant and unmitigated praise with which the mem- 
bers of a Mutual admiration Society here would criticize 
one another's productions. 

It is not possible for any clique, however excellent 
and liberal its individual component members, to be 
without some sAo/) and cant of its own. The cant of 
these men was inveighing against cant. It must not be 
supposed that they were mere imitators of Carlyle in 
this — the names of some of the members are enough to 
show that they had plenty of original men among them ; 
but they all affected much earnestness and a hearty dis- 
like of sham and formula, which rendered them far from 
popular with the High and Dry in literature, politics, 
or religion. The younger members at the University 
were eyed with terror by grave, plodding Johnians, as 
something foreign, German, radical, altogether mon- 
strous — they hardly pretended to know what. About 
the Society proper — the Sterling Club — some immense 
mares' nests were discovered at different times, and I 
am sorry to say that some Evangelical newspapers let 
loose a great deal of trash on the subject once or twice 
• — indeed they talked as much nonsense as the Pusey- 
ites. The Society was represented as established for 
the promotion of infidelity on the German plan, the de- 
nial of Christ, Templar-fashion, and other things " hor- 
rible and awful, but which the accusers did not deem it 



Five Tears in an JEnglish University. 161 

"unlawful" to name at length. As many of the mem- 
bers were in Orders, and some of them, indeed, digni- 
taries of the Church, the charge became a pretty serious 
one. All the ground for it was that poor Sterling, who, 
though the eponymous hero of the club, does not seem 
to have been the leading man in it, was shaken in his 
religious faith towards the close of his life ; therefore^ 
the association must be an infidel one. If he had gone 
mad and cut his throat, it might with equal justice have 
been called a suicide club. What jiarticular great and 
chief end the Society had I do not pretend to say — it is 
not exactly necessary that it should have had any. I 
supi^ose a number of literary men may club together in 
a quiet way without any other purpose than that of mu- 
tual amusement and improvement. At any rate, what- 
ever objects they had were literary, not religious or irre- 
ligious ; religion only entered into their discussions as it 
must into those of all serious men and real philosophers 
— lovers of tvisdom. Nor was their faith exposed to 
any peculiar danger beyond that which threatens all 
men engaged in high intellectual cultivation and living 
in a literary atmosphere — the danger of rating the intel- 
lectual too high in comparison with the moral. 

The heresy which I found in these men was a purely 
intellectual one — an utter under-valuation of and almost 
contempt for rhetoric and oratory. My acquaintance 
was chiefly confined to the younger men, my contempo- 
raries or juniors at the University, but the influence of 
the older men was visible in the younger ; and it cer- 
tainly was a general feature of them all that they looked 
down upon the art of public speaking as something 
necessarily shallow, insincere, and ignoble. They owned 
that the ideal orator was a great man, perhaps the great- 
est man conceivable ; but the actual attempts at approxi- 



162 Five Years in an English University. 

mation to him they deemed mere charlatanism, and this 
dislike seemed to be accompanied (as is often the case 
with our dislikes, physical or intellectual,) by an unfitness 
for success in that line — a turn of mind not popular, 
more philosophical than oratorical. Besides Hallam, I 
never knew but one of the members who was really 
born and cut out for a public speaker, and that one was 
never an enthusiastic member of the Society, and seemed 
to have been taken into it when they were short of re- 
cruits, or in some other way to have got in by mistake. 
With Hallam the opposing influences were curious to 
observe. He was made for a debater, the very neatest 
and most elegant extempore speaker I ever heard. His 
unprepared speeches were more critically and tastefully 
worded than most men's written compositions ; and this 
elegance of manner was based on great power of thought, 
the polish never impairing the strength, and supported 
by startling dexterity in argument. Most of his colle- 
giate friends urged him forward in the career for which 
he seemed so signally marked out. But his co-apostles 
threw cold water on his taste, and I have little doubt it 
was their influence which so long held him back from 
speaking at the Union. They doubtless really believed 
it to be an inferior occupation for him. When I men- 
tioned to some of them in no measured language my 
opinion of his talents for public speaking, they regarded 
it as little as if I had praised him for riding well, or get- 
ting up a supper with taste. I seemed to them to pick 
out one of his minor excellences as a subject for praise. 
However, we debaters had the best of it for a time, and 
our great triumph was when an M. A. Fellow Trinity, 
perhaps the most anti-rhetorical in his professions of all 
the apostles, actually came down to the Union, and 



Five Years in an English University. 163 

made a long speech in wMch he showed much anxiety 
to acquit himself well. 

With the New Year came on the great University 
examinations, which excited the usual interest. The 
Senior Wrangler this time was Adams of John's, since 
celebrated as the other discoverer of Le Yerrier's planet. 
He won in a canter, so to speak, having three thousand 
marks to the Second Wrangler's fourteen hundred, so 
that there was more numerical difference between them 
than between the Second AVrangler and the spoon. A 
singular case of fimk occurred at this examination. The 
man who would have been second (also a Johnian) took 
fright when four of the six days were over, and fairly 
ran away — not only from the examination, but out of 
Cambridge, and was not discovered by his friends or 
family till some time after. As it was, he came out 
ninth in the list of Wranglers, the high papers of the 
last two days affecting sensibly the places of only the 
first ten or fifteen. By getting the Second Smith's Prize 
he might have retrieved his prospects of a Fellowship, 
but here our best man from Trinity, who was only Third 
Wrangler, and but for the accident would have been 
fourth, cut him out. We wanted some little consola- 
tion of the sort, being in a terrible minority this year. 
In the Classical Tripos, where we generally looked for 
one or both Medalists as a matter of course, we had but 
one man in the First Class, and he only eighth of the 
eleven composing it. People began to put the blame on 
our Master, unjustly enough, as the men of that year had 
not entered under his auspices. The fact was, that a few 
years before there had been a great scarcity of Trinity 
Fellowships, so that men to whom the emoluments of 
learning were an object had become afraid to enter there 
until the supply of good candidates was thinned out a 



164 Five Years iti an JEnglish University. 

little. But in the University Scholarship, where the 
Third-year men of crack reputation came into play, our 
College met with a worse, because more unexpected, 
disappointment. There were four Trinity men expected 
to fill the first four places in the Classical Tripos of 1844, 
and three of these were now to fight for the Craven, 
with no danger except from one Kingsman. King's 
College stands in an anomalous position with regard to 
the rest of the University. It is a mere prolongation 
of Eton School. Its half-dozen Undergraduates, who 
have been the best " Collegers " at Eton, become Schol- 
ars and Fellows of the College as a matter of course, 
and also get their degrees from the University without 
passing any examination for it. As a necessary con- 
sequence, they have no opportunity of distinguishing 
themselves in either Tripos. But the University Prizes 
and Scholarships are open to them, and here they prove 
formidable rivals of the Trinity men. As the dangerous 
Kingsman was in his Second year, it was calculated that 
besides the chance of three to one against him, the not 
unjust preference ceteris paribus, shown to candidates 
who have no more opportunity left, would turn the 
scale against him. But now an outside competitor ap- 
peared in the person of the Pembroke third-year man 
who had carried off three prizes at the last Commence- 
ment. I was almost the only man in Trinity who knew 
him personally, and having very early in our acquaint- 
ance formed a high idea of his ability, and especially his 
quickness and pace (an important element of success),* 
ventured to talk of him as a likely candidate. The idea 

* In this examination we had thirteen lines of Milton for Latin 
Hexameters, fifteen lines of English prose to translate into Latin, 
and nine lines to translate into Greek, and but two hours and 
three-quarters for the wiiole. 



Five Years in an English University. 165 

of a Small- College beating all Trinity was deemed pi-e- 
jDosterous, and such a hint looked upon as a sort of trea- 
son to the College. Nevertheless it proved true ; he 
came out the winner, with the Kingsman and one of our 
three close at his heels, and all the rest nowhere. There- 
upon he became quite a lion. Still there was a strong 
party not prepared to admit that he would be Senior 
Classic, and the Trinity man with whom his College had 
declared to win (he Avho had been next to the successful 
candidate for the Craven), was regularly booked and en- 
tered for the head of the Tripos against him. It bid fair 
to be a very pretty race. The Trinity man was the best 
in Greek, the other in Latin ; and Greek, especially Com- 
position, counts more than Latin, in the Tripos. On the 
other hand, the Pembroke man had the prestige of the 
Scholarship, and superior rapidity of work, while his op- 
ponent had more accuracy and polish. Then again, he 
of Trinity was already well prepared in Mathematics, 
and the other had all his to get up, and as he must be a 
Senior Optim6 to contend for the Medal, this was a great 
dead weight iipon him. But again, the Trinity man's 
knowledge of Mathematics might tempt him to read for 
a Double First, and thus distract his attention from the 
one object. Friends of the candidates made bets (not 
very large ones, to be sure : I ultimately won seven 
pounds on my man), and the whole affair with its calcu- 
lations and contingencies was like a race or an election 
— except that there was no foul play. 

I went in to this examination in common with some 
sixty more outsiders, chiefly to find out by experiment 
if I was strong enough to sit through the Trinity Schol- 
arship next term, and also to become used to the feel of 
an examination, as I had not passed one since my first 
May, with the exception of the short and easy Little-Go. 



166 Five Years in an English University. 

Beginning thus with the most diflBcult examination in 
the University, I probably wrote a great deal of trash, 
but no one seeing it except the examiners, it was of little 
consequence. During the rest of the Lent term I was 
reading and writing for the Members' Prize, which, be- 
sides the labor of Latin Composition, required much 
Roman History " cram." Also I read with a friend 
some low Optics with a view to the May examination — ■ 
a very foolish speculation, as I had been over no Second- 
year Mathematics, and was not in a state to get up the 
subject in a reliable way. I moreover attended the 
Greek Professor's Lectures on Pindar and the College 
lectures on Plato to the Second year. 

The small number of students attending Professors' 
Lectures has often been remarked upon, and the most 
unfavorable conclusions drawn thence as regards the 
character of the instruction given, and the diligence of 
the instructed. The Divinity Lectures are crowded, 
because attendance on them is necessary to insure testi- 
monials for orders, but otherwise the Professors' rooms 
are apt to exhibit a beggarly account of empty benches. 
Dr. Whewell, notwithstanding his high reputation, had 
comparatively a small class when I attended his Lec- 
tures on Moral Philosophy, probably not more than fifty. 
Very jDossibly it has been much increased since the es- 
tablishment of the Moral Science Tripos. Professor 
Sedgwick had an attendance of not more than thirty at 
his Geological Lectures in the year 1841. The Greek 
Professor's Class in 1843 was rather under than above 
thirty. In all this there was nothing so bad as Buck- 
land's lecturing on Geology to three hearers at Oxford ; 
but I was actually myself one of a class of three who 
attended Professor Cumming's supplementary course of 
Chemistry in the year 1841. 



Five Years in an English University. 167 

But there could be no greater error than to take the 
attendance at Professorial Lectures as any test or indi- 
cation of the studious or non-studious propensities of 
English University men. It is because they are working 
so hard that the great body of reading men do not 
come to the lectures — working with their private tutors 
(who correspond to German pi'ofessors in some respects, 
as has been observed) for the Tripos, the Scholarships, 
or the College Mays. If the Greek Professor were 
really called on to teach the University Greek, he would 
be lost at once — he could not even attend to the hun- 
dred or hundred and twenty men of the three years who 
intend to go out in the Classical Tripos. There is no 
Latin Professorship in the University. The number of 
men likely to take up and pursue any one of the single 
Natural Sciences, Botany, Chemistry, Geology, <fec., for 
use or amusement in after life, is probably not greater 
than the proportion who really attend the lectures on 
these sciences. 

With regard to the College lectures delivered to the 
Junior and Senior Sophs, there is frequently, it must be 
owned, a very moderate attendance at them also. Some- 
times this is owing to the limited nature of the subject. 
For instance, one of the best Mathematical Fellows at 
Trinity or John's is lecturmg on some high branch of 
Mathematics — something of which the Differential Cal- 
culus is merely the alphabet ; none but high men can 
take interest in, or derive profit from such lectures. 
Now, as there are only on an average twelve Wranglers 
from John's, and nine from Trinity every year, the class 
is of necessity limited to a dozen, and the lecture takes 
very much the form of an examination. In Classics it 
depends chiefly on the lecturer whether he has a good 
class or not. The lectures, though mainly for the benefit 



168 Five Years in an J^/ujiisJi llu'co'sif}/. 

of a particular Year which is to he examined at the May 
in the subject lectured upon, are open without extra fee 
to all the College, and a lecturer who lias made one au- 
thor his specialiti', and can translate and explain him in 
an interestuig manner, will be sure to have a lai"ge at- 
tendance. Our Plato lecturer at Trinity furnished a 
striking example of this. His room was always crowd- 
ed ; his audience comprised not only the Junior Sophs, 
for whom the lecture Avas specially intended, but Senior 
Sophs, Bachelors, and even Fellows. ]!^ay, some men 
of other Colleges applied to be admitted ; biit this, if I 
remember rightly, was contrary to the College rules and 
usages. The lecturer was tall and handsome, of a com- 
manding and dignified appearance; when he played 
bowls the gi'ace of his attitudes reminded one of an an- 
cient statiie. His translations were exquisite ; he would 
presei've the force of every Greek particle (except, of 
course, such as j.tsv and <5,j, which only served the Greeks 
for points), while using the most elegant English ; but 
his illustratiA'e comments were the great attraction. 
The knottiest philosophical theories were illumined by 
liis dry jokes, which lavished equal satire on ancient and 
modern speculators. I attended three of his courses for 
three successive years, with unabated pleasure. Of the 
Protagoras, which was the subject this year, I had been 
careful enough to provide myself with an interleaved 
copy, and the notes then taken are among my most 
cherished manuscripts. 

This term I was called on to recite both my Decla- 
mations, English and Latin, in the chapel. Every Se- 
nior Soph is nominally required to write an English and 
a Latin Declamation, but many beg otf one or both; 
probably about tifty of each are sent in. The eight best 
of each had been selected for recitation, to live out of 



Five Years in an English University. 169 

Trhich sixteen, the best prizes Avere to be awarded. It 
was officially intimated in the Lecture-rooms that the 
Master would be pleased by a general attendance of the 
students, but in spite of this manifesto we had a very 
slim audience, not more than a dozen. I recollect poor 
Hallam posting himself right opposite the high desk or 
tribune, where I stood, keeping me under fire of his eye- 
glass the whole time ; and when I came to a period of 
which I had given him a private rehearsal during a con- 
stitutional on the previous Sunday, going off into a quiet 
laugh that almost disconcerted my gravity even in the 
awful presence of Whewell. 

The Union Debating Society, which had taken such 
a start at the beginning of the academic year, was now 
growing too lively, and evincing an Irish sort of vitality 
by a succession of rows. To keep up an interest in the 
debates, Ave had persuaded men of reputation to come 
forward as candidates for the offices, and a Trinity Bach- 
elor Scholar of high standing was put up for the presi- 
dency of the Lent Term. He was carried after a hard 
contest, and the defeated party tried to console them- 
selves by making a disturbance and annoying the assem- 
bly, especially on business nights. I may say here that 
English young gentlemen at a public meeting are more 
ungentlemanly than any class of our people (for a meet- 
ing of Irish or other foreigners in New York is not to 
be considered an American meeting) ; they never look 
upon the occasion in a serious light, but seem to consider 
it the most natural one for a lark. Two of the members 
got into a dispute on the floor of the house, Avhich was 
afterwards continued out of doors. The whole affair at 
length would make a very pretty bit of Trollopiana ; but 
when gentlemen by birth and education do not behave 
as such, it is not pleasant to dwell on their disgrace, 



170 Five Years in an English University. 

even for the pleasure of retaliating on Mr. Dickens. 
Suffice it to say, that one of them promised to horse- 
whip the other, and the threatened man assaulted hi8 
threatener with a " life-preserver," knocking him down 
and nearly killing him ; which coming to the ears of the 
College authorities (both parties were Trinity men), the 
wielder of the bludgeon was dismissed — not expelled* 
— from the College, and subsequently took a degree at 
one of the Halls in Oxford. An attempt was made to 
turn him out of the Union also, which, after a noisy dis- 
cussion of two or three nights, ended in our getting a 
large majority, but not the requisite two-thirds vote. 
This happened just at the end of the term, and imme- 
diately after the " rowing men " put up for the next 
term's presidency a Freshman who had no qualification 
in the world but being an Honorable. Our side had be- 
come so disgusted at the late turmoil that no prominent 
man would come forward ; at last I volunteered to stand 
the fight, for the express pui'pose of keeping out the 
other. But the title was a talisman not to be overcome, 
and I was left in a minority. After this the debates fell 
off, and did not rally till late in the next year, when the 
Young England and Monastic questions brought them 
up again. 

About this time came the College Scholarship Exam- 
ination, at which I presented myself, but having some- 
what arrogantly underrated the Classical standard and 
scarcely attempted to prepare myself in Mathematics, 
I cut no very distinguished figure. The Declamations 
also were now adjudged, and I missed both the Latin, 
but was consoled with the first English. It was my first 
success since returning to work, and about the showiest 

* An expelled man is shut out from the learned professions, 
as well as from all Colleges at either University. 



Five years in an English University. 171 

prize I could have taken. The best Mathematical man 
of the Second year having failed to get a Scholarship for 
want of Classics, it was taken as an earnest of the Mas- 
ter's intention to require " double men," and some Fresh- 
men were frightened and migrated in consequence 
whereby we lost a high Wrangler or two for 1846. 

There was an amusing mistake made in this Scholar- 
ship examination. One of the extracts for translation 
began — " In equo Trojano scis esse in extremo ; sero 
sapiunt," which one man — and he was a clever fellow too, 
but liable to be muddle-headed at times like many clever 
people — translated " You know it was on the tail of a 
Trojan horse," etc. These mistranslations are part of the 
by-play of and relief to an examination, and the accum- 
ulation of them forms a sort of University Joe Miller. 
Travis is responsible for this one ; I suspected him of 
inventing it, but he assured me that it was really made 
by a schoolmate of his younger brother. 

" Caesar captivos sub corona vendidit." Caesar sold 
the captives for less than five shillings.' 

And this one he credited to a pupil of his own — 

" Est enim finitimus oratori poeta ; numeris adstric- 
tior pauUo verborum auteni licentia liberior." " For a 
poet lived next door to the oi'ator, too licentious in his 
language, but more circumspect than numbers." 

In the Tripos of 1841, a beautiful passage from The- 
ocritus was set. It is in the Thatusia (7th Idyll), where 
the poet and his friend, after a hot summer walk, sit 
down to repose in a sylvan retreat ; trees over their 
heads, running water at their feet, birds singing above 
them, bees humming around, cicadoe chirping, loads of 
fruit dropping into their very mouths ; and then says the 
jolly bard — 

" rerpdevef 6e tti'&uv cnreXveTo Kparbg aXeifap. 



172 Five Years in an English University. 

" The cement of four years' old was loosed from the top 
of the jars," nempe^ to have a merry drinking-bout of it, 
as the context goes on to show; but with this line the 
examiner had stopped his extract, leaving the matter 
somewhat obscure ; and one man, deceived by the zoo ■ 
logical character of much that had gone before — the 
mention of various kinds of insects and birds — rendered 
the line thus : " And the ape was removing from his head 
the dirt of four years' standing " — the beauty of which 
is that, so far as syntax and construction are concerned, 
the words might have this meaning : hizelvETo might be a 
deponent, and there is a form •kI-^uv for iri'&riKog. 

In the " Moral Papers " very odd answers are some- 
times given. Paley is an author quite capable of being 
turned into nonsense by a slight mistake, and he and 
some other " moral " authors come much into play in the 
Poll and Little Go, where a large number of the exam- 
inees are likely to make more than slight mistakes in at- 
tempting to write out what they have attempted to get 
up. One unfortunate who had confounded together the 
opening paragraphs of the Evidences and the Natural 
Theology^ having " cut " a paper in despair, the examiner 
found at his desk, on one of the sheets which he had 
been vainly trying to fill, only this commencement of a 
sentence, " If twelve men find a watch." 

Another luminary gave as Paley's definition of virtue^ 
" Man acts more from habit than reflection." 

During the short Easter term there is not much hard 
work done among the Seiiior Sophs, except by two or 
three of the best Mathematicians who are fighting for 
the head of the year. Those who have got their Schol- 
arships are inclined to indulge themselves a little, those 
who have lost them usually get a fit of pique, and don't 
care where tliey are in the Examination. The Classical 



Five Years in an English University. 173 

men generally are looking to their Tripos, np to which 
they now have a straight course of nine months before 
them, and are not willing to break in upon their routine 
by preparing " Morals," Greek Testament, and Mathe- 
matical subjects ahead of their regular order, for the 
May. The Mathematics at this, the last regular College 
examination, are pretty high — Astronomy, Integral Cal- 
culus, the most difficult Dynamics, and the latter part of 
the Principia, general Questions and Problems in all 
branches — nothing that can be done without DiiFerential, 
except parts of the Optical and Hydrostatical papers. 
To give the ttoXXoI and Classical men something to do 
while the Astronomy, Problems, and High Dynamics 
are going on, they have two j^apers of translation from 
the subjects for the ordinary degree examination of next 
year, and one of low Mathematics, on which papers marks 
are given enough to keep a man from being " j^osted," 
but not enough to influence perceptibly his standing in 
the classes. The papers not Mathematical correspond 
nearly to those of the Second-year examination — one on 
the Acts, two half papers on " Morals " — Butler's Anal- 
ogy and Paley's Evidences), and one on some portion of 
Aristotle. Our Aristotle lecturer was a master of his 
subject, and his lectures were well attended. They came 
in very apropos, after those on Plato of the term be- 
fore. Every man, it has been said, is either a Platonist 
or an Aristotelian ; and the Trinity students had a capi- 
tal opportunity of making their choice, by hearing the 
distinctive merits of the two great philosophers set forth 
to the best advantage by their able and enthusiastic ad- 
mirers. It has often surprised me, considering the very 
practical character of Aristotle's greatest extant works, 
and the perfection of common sense which they display, 
that no attempt has ever been made to introduce any 



174 Five Years in an English University. 

part of them into our Academical course. A great 
many of the suggestions in his Rhetoric and Politics are 
perfectly true to the present day, and have never been 
improved upon ; and his Ethics^ however inferior to those 
of the Christian dispensation, may, whether regarded in 
an ethical or a metaphysical point of view, teach much 
to our new-light reformers. True he is a difficult author, 
but not more so than others that have a place in our 
course, Sophocles for instance, yerh. sap. sat. I hope 
I may live to see the experiment tried. 

The First Class in this yeai-'s May examination varies 
from five to eleven, the whole number of examinees be- 
ing about eighty. Its usual number is eight. The stand- 
ard for admission into it had fallen rather low about this 
time, for while the first man in it could, and sometimes 
did get twenty-four hundred marks, the last had on some 
occasions less than eight hundred and fifty. This em- 
boldened me to work for a First Class, though I had but 
three papers out of nine to rely on, as all the Mathemat- 
ics I could hope to do were a few questions in Optics, 
some elementary projjositions of the science and the 
description of an instrument or two, perhaps fifty marks 
in all. So I ground away, cramming Acts and " Morals " 
and polishing up three Books of the Nicomachean Eth- 
ics as well as I could, and also writing Greek prose, 
which entered into the paper. The experiment was not 
successful. I had underrated the range of the IsTew 
Testament paper, and did not clear one-half of it ; and 
on the Morals I afterwards found that my answers, 
though correct, were not long and explicit enough. In 
the Aristotle paper I did better, standing third on it. It 
Avas the only paper of the last day, and as such had five 
hours assigned to it, and five hours hard work it took, 
comprising as it did translations of the most difficult 



Five Years in an English University. 175 

passages, critical illustrations, questions on the history of 
Aristotle himself, the history of his works, the history of 
metaphysical and ethical schools, and to finish off with, a 
nice little bit of English to be translated into Greek. 
Our best Classic had not time to floor the paper. To 
destroy any chance I might have left, the standard of 
the First Class was run up ; it contained only six men, 
the lowest of whom had above eleven hundred marks. 
Several candidates for Wranglerships kept me company 
in the Second Class, and I was given to understand that I 
ought to consider myself very well off in not being lower. 

While the result of this examination was pending, I 
went for a few days to Oxford, where the virtual term 
ended rather later than ours. My stay being only three 
days, I had no great opportunities of personal observa- 
tion, but by comparing what I did see with the result 
of my knowledge obtained at various times through oth- 
ers, I could note very considerable differences. 

The general impression that we in this country have 
of the two Universities is that Mathematics are studied 
at Cambridge, and Classics at Oxford. The reader has 
seen that there is no want of Classical Study at Cam- 
bridge. The Cantabs are stronger in Greek, the Oxon- 
ians in Latin,* but they both read Classics ; the Cam- 
bridge men however read Classsics and Mathe^naticSy 
the Oxford men Classics and Logic. This is the great 
pervading difference. 

.There is but one Undergraduate gown for all the 

* It might also be said that the Oxford Scholarship was more 
elegant, the Cambridge more accurate. The mutual banter of the 
Universities well illustrates both these distinctions. The Oxon- 
ians used to say that the Cambridge men never could write good 
Latin prose ; the latter retorted that there never was an Oxford 
man who knew the difference between ov and ^^. 



176 Five Years in an English University. 

Colleges at Oxford, and the gold-tufted cap which at 
Cambridge only designates a Johnian or Small-College 
Fellow- Commoner is here the mark of nobility. In- 
stead of Pensioners and Fellow-Commoners, the stu- 
dents are called Commoners and Gentleman-Common- 
ers. 

The academical year is divided into four terms — 
Michaelmas, Hilary, Easter, and Trinity — instead of 
three as at Cambridge ; but as they are proportionally 
shorter, the period of residence is about the same. 

There are two annual periods of general admission 
for students, and correspondingly two great University 
Degree examinations, one at the end of the Michaelmas 
Term, the other at the end of the Easter. The Honor 
and Poll men are all examined together, as they used to 
be at Cambridge, and the candidates are arranged in five 
classes, the fifth and largest of which corresponds to the 
Cambridge Poll. The Aristotelian mental and moral 
philosophy, as found in the Ethics and Rhetoric, consti- 
tute the base of the necessary part of this examination. 
Next in importance come Herodotus and Thucydides. 
Beyond this the Classical part of the examination is in 
a great measure voluntary ; a student sends in a list of 
the hooks, i. e., authors on which he will be examined — • 
twelve I have understood to be a suflicient number for a 
First Class, though of course it is possible to take in 
more than this and only get a third — and the viva voce, 
which forms an important part of the examination, is 
confined to them. Composition there is, of course, but 
more Latin than Greek, and some original Composition. 
" Morals " also come in to a certain extent, as arising out 
of the Aristotle. The cram is tremendous, the authors 
being read for matter more than language, which consti- 
tutes another great diiference between it and the Cam- 



Five Years in an English University. 177 

bridge University examinations; the College Mays at 
Cambridge are more like the Schools at Oxford. The 
First Class averages six, which as the examination is 
half-yearly, makes it about equal to the average of the 
First Class at Cambridge. The examination in Mathe- 
matics takes place subsequently, being a voluntary after 
the Classical, just as at Cambridge the Classical is a vol- 
untary after the Mathematical. The candidates are not 
numerous — about ten in each examination, or twenty in 
the year. The First Class does not average more than 
three. The standard of it, so far as I could learn, cor- 
responded to that of a low Wrangler in Cambridge. 
The whole number of candidates for Honors is nearly 
the same at Oxford as at Cambridge ; if there is any dif- 
ference, the average at the former is a trifle less. Both 
in Classics and Mathematics the men of each class are 
alphabetically arranged, so that there is nothing coiTes- 
ponding to the Senior Wrangler or Senior Classic. 

How the standard of a First Class in Classics at Ox- 
ford compares with one at Cambridge is a much dis- 
puted point. The Oxford men claim that theirs is much 
higher, and allege as one j^roof, that several crack Class- 
ical men who were either absolutely plucked in the 
slaughter of 1841, or frightened away on the same occa- 
sion, migrated to Oxford, and after remaining there some 
time, came out only in the Second Class. But as it was, 
though probable, by no means certain that these men 
would have been in the First Class at Cambridge, this 
argument does not go for a great deal. Even if such a 
thing were to happen as a Cambridge University Schol- 
ar migrating to Oxford and taking a Second Class, it 
would be no more than has happened to the Ireland 
University Scholar at Oxford, which shows that the De- 
gree examination there has peculiarities of its own, in- 
8* 



178 Five Years in an English University. 

dependent of general Classical ability. I knew an Ox- 
ford Second-Class man who certainly was a first-rate 
scholar in several things. He could not be floored any- 
where in Pindar, even if put on in the middle of a sen- 
tence ; and it was told me that when called up to viva 
voce in the Latin poets, he knewby heart all the passages 
given him to construe, so that merely glancing at the 
first line he repeated the rest in the original, and then 
translated it without further reference to the book. He 
said he had been floored in the Logic and Morals. Now 
I do not think breaking down on one paper would keep 
a man out of the First Class in the Cambridge Tripos, 
if his performance in the others was first-rate. But on 
the other hand the range of authors for the Cambridge 
Tripos is wider — in fact is only limited by the limits of 
the Classical ages in Greek and Roman literature ; while 
I have heard of an Oxford First Class man who had 
read no Plato, and another who had read no Demosthe- 
nes ; and this I fancy could hardly happen at Cambridge. 
Of the four classes which are considered Honors, the 
Fourth is in popular estimation preferable to the Third^ 
because it is customary when a student only goes in to 
pass, but does very well in some of his papers, to lift 
him up out of the Fifth Class into the Fourth. You 
cannot tell, therefore, from a man's being in the Fourth 
Class whether he has broken down in Honors or done 
well in the Poll, while a Third Class is an unmitigated 
failure in Honors ; those only being in it who have tried 
for Firsts and Seconds, and sent in their lists of authors 
accordingly. While on this point I may mention the 
fate of a personage somewhat notorious by name among 
lis, the JRev. Isaac Fidler, who once wrote a book about 
his experience in America. On our side the water he is 
not unfrequently classed with Trollope and Dickens, but 



Five Years in an English UtiiversifT/. 179 

in his own country is a prophet altogether without hon- 
or and never mentioned in such good company. I fancy 
that abusing America only gives a man a sort of pres- 
tige in certain quarters in England, a kind of ]V'ima facie 
claim to be heard, like doing well at the University ; 
but will not be sufficient of itself to make his reputation, 
imless he follows it up with something better ; and Mr. 
Fidler having written his book of abuse, but not backed 
it by any other fictitious productions, made no renown 
for himself This gentleman, with all his pretence to 
learning, had never taken a University Degree at home, 
and when he attempted the experiment, rather late in 
life, and considerably the senior of his examiners,* he 
came out in the Third Class, and his name is there to 
this day on the list for the Easter Term, 1840, as any 
one may see who possesses a copy of the Oxford Calen- 
dar. The best of the joke is, that, according to the de- 
lightful geographical and jDolitical confusion of ideas 
which Europeans now and then exhibit in reference to 
things American, he was taken at the University for a 
countryman of ours ! because he hailed last from Cana- 
da ! ! and I had some difficulty in j^ersuading an Oxford 
man that this was not the case. In the minor examina- 
tions at Oxford the same general features are observable 
in distinction to those at Cambridge ; the presence of 
viva voce as an important element, the absence of Math- 
ematics, and the student's selection of the books on 
which he is to be examined. At the Stnalls, as the pre- 
vious Examination is here called, each examinee sends 
in his Greek and Latin boolc ; but the term book must be 

* At Oxford as at Cambridge, the Degree Examiners are all 
of the Young Don species. The Scholarships and Fellowships are 
examined for by older men. 



180 Five Years in an English University. 

taken in a larger sense than that of author at Cambridge 
— for instance three or four plays might be required at 
Oxford to make a hook. It follows that the Smalls is a 
more formidable examination than the Little-Go. The 
rest of it consists of Logic, for which the student may, 
if he please, substitute three or four Books of Euclid. 
The College examinations, called collections, are strictly- 
private. Each student choses a Greek and a Latin book 
once a term, and is examined on them by his College 
tutor. No rewai'ds are given for proficiency in these ex- 
aminations. Prizes for essays, verses, etc., either at the 
particular Colleges or in the University at large, are 
much fewer than at Cambridge, indeed the great point 
at Oxford seems to be to concentrate all the interest of 
the three years and a half upon the final examination. 

Some particulars of separate colleges are worth no- 
ticing. Christ Church, the great college of Oxford, an- 
swering to Trinity at Cambridge, which might be as 
populous as Trinity if it chose, confines itself to about 
a hundred and fifty undergraduates, wishing to keep up 
a reputation for being aristocratic and exclusive. You 
cannot get into Christ Church without having good con- 
nections and influence, so it is said. Trinity men are al- 
so wont to distinguish themselves in the University ex- 
aminations, which is another diflTerence between that col- 
lege and Christ Church. 

All Souls has no Undergraduates ; nor does this 
arise from any corruption or abuse : it was originally 
founded for Fellows only. It is in fact a pleasant club 
of well-born, gentlemanly men, with some literary or 
scholastic tastes, who reside or not, just as they please, 
and are paid £100 a year for no particular merit or act, 
excej)t the negative one of not marrying. [There was 
a popular ( Uiiversity popular) tradition that, according 



Five Years in an English University. 181 

to the statutes of All Souls, these Fellows ai-e to be 
be7ie nati^ bene vestiti, et moderate docti — in arte musica 
was sometimes added. But nothing of the sort is to be 
found in the statutes. On the conti'ary, the Fellows 
were to be " poor and indigent." See Oxford Univer- 
sity Commission Report, page 216.] 

All the Colleges at Cambridge have equal privileges 
and rights, with the solitary exception of King's,* and 
though some of them are called Halls, the diiference is 
merely one of name. But the Halls at Oxford, of 
which there are five, are not incorporated bodies, and 
have no vote in University matters, indeed are but a 
sort of boarding-houses at which students may remain 
until it is time for them to take a degree. I dined at 
one of these establishments ; it was very like an officers' 
mess. The men had their own wine, and did not wear 
their gowns, and the only Don belonging to the Hall 
was not present at table. There was a tradition of a 
chapel belonging to the concern, but no one present 
knew where it was. Tliis Hall seemed to be a small 
Botany Bay of both Universities, its members made xip 
of all sorts of incapables and incorrigibles ; one man had 
been dismissed from St. John's, Cambridge, for driving 
a tandem into the College grounds, and over a Don or 
two; another from Trinity College, Cambridge, for 
some equally gross offence ; a third from an Oxford Col- 

* The peculiar position of King's has been alluded to. Be- 
sides the privilege mentioned of taking a degree without passing 
any examination, its members, when on their own premises, are 
not subject to the Proctor's authority. The government of the 
College is very pedantic and despotic, at least it was in my time. 
Exeats, or permission to go down during term, were never granted 
but in cases of life and death, and an unusual number of chapels 
were exacted. 



182 Five Years m an English University. 

lege for a third flagrant misdemeanor ; and a fourth had 
been plucked an incalculable number of times, and stayed 
long enough at the University, he said himself, to be a 
Doctor of Divinity. 

The Oxonians profess to be more of gentlemen than 
the Cantabs ; they certainly have more wealthy and ti- 
tled men among them, and therefore more luxury, and 
possibly more refinement of manners. On the other 
hand, I shall not be suspected of envy or accused of 
misrepresentation, when I assert a notorious fact, that 
they are, as compared with the members of the other 
University, unacquainted with general literature, un- 
practical and very antediluvian in all matters of politics 
and world-knowlege. A Cambridge friend of mine who 
had migrated from Oxford, told me that he did so be- 
cause there were only two sets of men there, one who 
fagged unremittingly for the Schools, and another devo- 
ted to frivolity and dissipation ; * that he could find noth- 
ing between the two — no literary men who knew some- 
thing besides their cram-books and shop — no half read- 
ing, half literary men of leisure, as at Cambridge. I 
have never met with persons who knew so little of what 
was going on out of doors as the Oxonians I had the 
fortune to encounter at my visit there. Even of the 
question which was then agitating their University — the 
Puseyite movement — they seemed to possess no certain 
knowledge. " We leave all that to the M. A.'s," said 
one to whom I put some query respecting the state of 
feeling among the Undergraduates on the subject. The 
question was asked in a room full of Christ Church men, 

* It is the character of the Oxford idle man to be less violently 
dissipated than the rowing Cantab, but more frivolous than the 
fast one. The exquisite in dress, a rare bird on the banks of the 
Cam, is not uncommon on those of the Isis. 



Five Years in an English University. 183 

twelve at least, and I do not think the same number 
could have been brought together at Trhiity who would 
have showed such incompetence to amuse or be amused 
by, to teach something to or learn something from, a 
stranger. 

There is an absurd, irritating, boarding-school-like 
system of petty rules prevailing at most of the Oxford 
Colleges, making a state affair of the merest trifles, such 
as getting half a cold fowl from the buttery, which must 
belittle the minds of all concerned either in enforcing 
or suffering it. Confectioners are not allowed to send 
ice-cream to a student's rooms ; it has to be smuggled 
in. On asking the cause of this peculiar prohibition, I 
was told in sober seriousness that the enactment was 
first made at the time of the cholera in 1832, and that 
as it was not the custom to alter any law at Oxford that 
had once been passed^ it had remained in force ever 
since. 

A determined radical might attribute the backward- 
ness of the Oxford men to the old Tory character of the 
University and the greater number of noblemen and 
rich men here than at Cambridge ; nor is it improbable 
that these causes have something to do with it. An ad- 
mirer of science and contemner of the dead languages 
might account for the different intellectual condition of 
the two Universities by the compelled study of Mathe- 
matics at Cambridge, and their almost entire absence at 
Oxford. But unfortunately for this solution, it happens 
that at Cambridge the Classical men are usually the ones 
most distinguished for general literary knowledge and 
enlightened views. Trinity, the great Classical College, 
is the great Whig College also, and St. John's, the nur- 
sery of Senior Wranglers, is equally the hot-bed of big- 
otry. Indeed it was this that always puzzled me when 



184 Five Years in an English University. 

speculating on the subject ; the general plan of the Ox- 
ford system seemed more liberal and liberalizing than 
that of the Cambridge. No compulsory Mathematics ; 
what was compulsory the study of one of the most 
practical and acute authors, not merely of his own age, 
but of any age, sufficient viva voce to give readiness and 
confidence, yet the actual result proved just the other 
way, whether I relied on my own experience or trusted 
the testimony of others; there was far less general 
knowledge and love of literature, and infinitely less lib- 
erality of sentiment at Oxford than at Cambridge. 
Without pretending to explain the discrepancy, I shall 
make bold to hint at one or two things that may have 
something to do with it. 

There is one way in which the Mathematical element 
at Cambridge may make that University more progres- 
sive than the other. The higher branches of Mathemat- 
ics certainly require and exercise originality more than 
Classical studies, and accordingly, the good Mathemati- 
cians who come up to Cambridge (for making a man a 
mathematician who is not so naturally I consider a very 
exceptional case, and we must therefore look rather at 
the influence which the Mathematicians have on the Uni- 
versity than the influence which it has on them) may in- 
fuse more originality of thought and speculation into the 
whole body. Against this, however, must be set off" the 
engrossing nature of the study of Mathematics, which 
demands the learner's whole concentrated attention, and 
gives him a perilous bias one way ; but this does not ap- 
ply to the Graduates and Fellows, who have leisure to 
turn their thoughts to other subjects. Again, there is 
an evident tendency at Oxford to read authors too much 
in reference to their matter only, so that with the ex- 
ception of the Composition — and that depends in a great 



Five Years in an English University. 185 

measure on early practice and drill — a memory of ex- 
traordinary capacity is the great reliance in the Schools. 
Now, our feeling at Cambridge was rather against an 
extraordinary memory, \mless it was accompanied by 
extraordinary talent : as standing instead of talent, it 
was looked down upon, and deemed an accomplishment 
for a boy rather than for a man. Such a one would do 
better, I often heard it said, if he had not so good a 
memory ; he depends too much upon it, and does not 
think enough. I suspect, too, that the absence of Col- 
lege examinations at which honor can be gained, and 
the paucity of College and Universiiy prizes at Oxford, 
have an unfavorable eftect. Moreover, the Scholarships 
and Fellowships are, with some noble exceptions,* 
usually close ; they depend on favor or locality of birth- 
place or school. It must happen that many good men 
grow tired of reading three years for a single end, with- 
out any intermediate diversion or stimulus, and are 
tempted into the ranks of the idle and dissipated ; while 
those who continue their reading become cramped and 
rusty from the fixed pursuit. 

These remarks on Oxford are very imperfect and 
unsatisfactory, I am well aware. The incurious nature 
of most Oxford men, and the difficulty of getting any 
infoimation out of them, must be my excuse. 

» Such as the Balliol Fellowships, open to the whole Univer- 
sity by examination. 



186 Five Years in an English University. 



PRIVATE TUITI02T. 

avv Ts Sv epxofJ.ivu, Kai re Trpo o rov evdrjaev. — Iliad x. 224. 

ON returning from my short visit to Oxford, I set to 
work for the English Essay, and soon after finish- 
ing and sending in my exercise (name under seal as usual) 
was encouraged by taking solus^ the University Latin 
Essay Prize. Before this, however, I had started with 
the intention of going out next year in both Triposes, 
and had accordingly put on two coaches. My old friend 
Travis being no longer a resident, I had recourse to a 
Johnian, one of the few Classical men of that College, 
as different a man from Travis as might be, but quite a 
character too in his way. He was so large and dignified 
in person as to have acquired the sobriquet of Jupiter — 
in those miserable, drizzling, spitting days of which the 
English climate boasts an extra share, we used to ap- 
peal to him, by this name, to exercise his influence with 
the clerk of the weather — one of the best natured and 
one of the laziest of mortals : his end and occupation 
and pleasure seemed to be to lie all day on a sofa, writ- 
ing Greek and Latin verses, which he did beautifully, or 
reading English poetry. For Mathematics — having to 
begin from the beginning, the six months before me 
were not too long a time — 1 took shelter in a great re- 
fuge of Classical men, who had a wonderful reputation 
for putting through incapables, and worked some thirty 
or forty pupils regularly. This " putting on two coaches 



Five Years in an English University. 187 

for the last Long," is an ordinary practice ; and there 
are few terms or vacations during which a student is not 
engaged with one tutor at least. Being so important a 
feature in the University system, private tuition de- 
mands a more particular examination and description 
than the occasional references to it hitherto incidentally 
made supply. 

The private tutor at an English University corres- 
ponds, as has already been observed, in many respects 
to the Professor at a German. The German professor 
is not necessarily attached to any specific chair ; he re- 
ceives no fixed stipend, and has not public lecture rooms ; 
he teaches at his own house, and the number of his pu- 
pils depends on his reputation. The Cambridge private 
tutor is also a Graduate, who takes pupils at his rooms 
in numbers proportionate to his reputation and ability. 
And although, while the German professor is regularly 
licensed as such by his University, and the existence of 
the private tutor as such is not even oflacially recognized 
by his, still this difference is more apparent than real ; 
for the English University has virtually licensed the tu- 
tor to instruct in a particular branch by the standing she 
has given him in her Examinations. Thus a high Wran- 
gler may be considered ipso facto a competent instructor 
in Mathematics, and so on. But the private tutor's of- 
fice is somewhat peculiar in the details of instruction, 
owing to the causes which first called the system into 
being and now perpetuate it. 

The publicity given to College and University Hon- 
ors, and the importance assigned to them, have been al- 
ready more than once alluded to. They exceed any- 
thing of Avhich we have any conception in our academi- 
cal institutions. True, the publicity does not come in 
the same way; there is no crowding to Commence- 



188 Five Years in an English University. 

ments to hear the young men make speeches ; but if a 
comparatively small number of the public come to gaze 
at the successful student, his name goes forth to all who 
read the papers — for in every newspaper not only the 
results of the Degree Examination and the University 
Prizes, but all the College Examinations and College 
Prizes are conspicuously reported. When I was elected 
Scholar of Trinity, Dr. Whewell thought it worth while 
to write to Mr. Everett, announcing the fact in advance 
of the press, as if our Minister would be justified in re- 
garding it as a sort of national matter. When an ac- 
quaintance of mine, who was related to a member of the 
Cabinet, wished for a start in the diplomatic line, the 
statesman's first advice to him was, '' be sure to get a 
Wranglership." As to the first men of the year, they 
are no end of celebrities for the time being. A small 
biography of the Senior Wrangler is usually published 
in some local paper near his native place, thence trans- 
ferred to the Cambridge papers, and from them copied 
widely into other journals; while the School which sent 
up the University Scholar and Senior Classic generally 
take care that something shall be said about him. But 
the honor is far from being the only point of the temp- 
tation. All these Examinations except the two Triposes,* 
bring with them some solid testimonial in the- shape of 
books, plate, or money — more generally the last, and 
sometimes to a very considerable amount. A Trinity 
Scholarship is worth £60 a year, if the holder re- 
mains constantly in residence — £40 to most men, ac- 
cording to the extent to which they usually avail them- 
selves of it. Some of the Small-College Scholarships 
are worth £100 per annum. A Fellowship gives an in- 

* And even these indirectly, as they lead to Small-College Fel- 
lowships. 



Five Years in an English TIniversity. 189 

come of from £200 to £400. A friend of mine was, 
during his third year, between School " Exliibitions," 
College Scholarships and Prizes, and the University 
Scholarship, in the receipt of more than Seventeen Hun- 
dred dollars ; and as his expenses did not exceed half 
that sum, he was a gainer to the amount of the other 
half by receiving his education. Indeed, it is a common 
saying, and hardly an exaggerated one, that a poor stu- 
dent by taking a high degree supports not only himself 
but his mother and sisters for life. 

Now it is evident that students come ujd to the Uni- 
versity with all degrees of preparation — some from the 
public schools, already accomplished Classics, and requir- 
ing only to enlarge their sphere of reading, get more 
philosophical conceptions in syntax, and increase their 
pace in Composition ; but with very scanty knowledge 
of Mathematics — some from private tutors, who have 
perhaps read two years ahead in Mathematics, but are 
rather shady in Greek and Latin — others from private 
schools or tutors, not too well prepared in anything. 
Moreover, while the public-school man has had a previous 
training for tlie Classical examinations of the University 
in those of his own school, many of his fellow-students 
are not in a position to apply their knowledge with the 
best effect to the system in which they find themselves. 
To make up for former deficiencies, and to direct study 
so that it may not be wasted, are two desiderata which 
probably led to the introduction of private tutors, once 
a partial, now a general appliance. Now, it is true, that 
the extent of ground to be gone over in Classics is too 
great for any one who enters very deficient in them to 
be worked up by any means so as to take a good degree, 
yet even here a great deal may be done, and a very in- 
accurate and superficial knowledge be filled in and pol- 



190 Five Years in an English University. 

isbed up to a surprising extent ; while in Mathematics, 
the student who comes up knowing only his First-year 
subjects, but with a very good capacity for science, has 
time enough, under proper direction, to get a place 
among the first twenty Wranglers, or even the first ten. 
And it is through his tutor's aid that many a Classical 
man, who could never have jDassed of himself, saves his 
distance in Mathematics, or is even pushed into the Se- 
nior Optim6s, so as to be qualified for a Medal ; and that 
many a Freshman takes a First Class in the May Exam- 
ination, and is thereby encouraged to go on reading for 
Honors, instead of being disgusted and killed off at the 
outset. Moreover, even for the subjects in which a stu- 
dent enters well prepared, the coach is most useful to 
keep him at his work and prevent him from losing 
ground. The daily or ter-weekly attendance has a bene- 
ficial effect in making the pupil work regularly, nor is 
the tutor in most cases at all slow to blow up any of his 
team who give signs of laziness. Indeed this was an 
acknowledged requisite of a good coach. " I am afraid 

of going to T ," you may hear it said, " he doesrUt 

slang his men enoughP In working up a clever man 
whose previous training has been neglected, in cram- 
ming a man of good memory but no great brilliancy, in 
putting the last polish to a crack man and quickening 
his pace, so as to give him a place or two among the 
highest in either Tripos — in such feats a skilful tutor 
will exhibit consummate jockeyship ; he seems to throw 
a part of himself into his pupil and work through him. 
The student reading with a Classical tutor translates 
to him from some (prepared) author, brings him Compo- 
sition prepared at home, and writes out in the tutor's 
rooms, examination fashion, both translations and com- 
positions, which, after being corrected, are compared 



Five Years in an English University. 191 

with the tutor's models. As much of the pupil's read- 
ing must be done by himself, the great object of the tu- 
tor is the Composition, but he also serves as a general 
commentator and last resort in difficulties ; it is also his 
business to make selections of hard passages from au- 
thors whom the student may not have time or inclina- 
tion to read the whole of, and to point out jDroper books 
for "cram" and philological information. 

In Mathematics, examinations — that is, working ex- 
amples and problems — are the principal exercise, most 
" book-work " difficulties being sufficiently explained in 
the books, though some tutors consider their own manu- 
scripts better than any of the books, and make their pu- 
pils copy them. The men are continually writing out 
book- work, either at home or in their tutor's rooms; 
they practise it to get pace as well as accuracy. 

An ordinary tutor takes five or six pupils a day, giv- 
ing an hour to each. One of great celebrity will have 
twice as many if a Classic, or four times as many if a 
Mathematician. A mathematical tutor can drive a much 
larger team than a classical ; the latter cannot well have 
more than three men construing to him at a time, nor 
can he look over and correct the Compositions of more 
than ten in a day with the care and accuracy desirable ; 
the former can be making explanations and setting ex- 
amples to a squad of eight or ten together. The one to 
whom I now resorted used to give his thirty pupils reg- 
ular " fights," as he called them ; he would set ten or 
twelve of them to write out a paper on some subject, 
and give them mai'ks for it just as in an examination ; 
and the results of these fights papered the room during 
a whole term or vacation, till there was no place left on 
the walls for any more. 

The men who have taken the very highest degrees 



192 Five Years in an JEnglish University. 

do not always make the best tutors. The most celebra- 
ted coach for high Mathematical men was a seventh 
Wrangler; our friend of the Jights an eighth Wrangler. 

To many of the irolXol coaches are no less necessary, 
though the quality in demand is of an inferior kind. 
The chief requisite of a Poll coach is patience, as his pu- 
pils are likely to be very stupid or very lazy, and in 
either case very ignorant ; a man of any ability and 
knowledge going out in the Poll is able to be his own 
tutor for the occasion. 

The regular fee of a private tutor is £7 a term, if you 
go to him on alternate days, or £14 if every day. Noble- 
men and Fellow-Commoners pay more, and Sizars about 
one-half The charges for the vacations are propor- 
tional. 

The intercourse between the private tutor and his 
pupil varies of course according to the character and 
age of both parties, but it is usually of the most familiar 
kind, the former seldom attempting to come Don over 
the latter. When they are personal friends, as is not 
nnfrequently the case, it becomes very free and easy, 
sometimes blending amusement with instruction in a 
rather comical way. When I was recovering from ill- 
ness sufficiently to " put on " Travis again, he used to 
come to me, to save me the ascent of his three pair of 
stairs, and a man who had been my fellow pupil with, 
him from the beginning of our Freshmanship would 
meet him there. We were reading ^schylus, and some- 
thing had possessed us to attack the Supplices, which 
we afterwards concluded was rather a waste of our 
time, the corruptions and difficulties of the play being 
so great that it is scarcely ever set except in University 
Scholarships, and the poetry not of a character to repay 



Five Years in an English University. 193 

the trouble of making out its meaning. Here is the sort 
of scene we three used to have. 

\^A cosily furnished room about twelve feet square. 
Present Travis and his two pupils ; also any number of 
lexicons, seven German commentators^ and two English 
ones, scattered about in various places. The owner of 
the apartment, attired in a very old dressing-gown and 
slippers, half buried in an arm-chair, and looking what 
some young ladies call interesting, i. Q,.,pcde and seedy, 
and hardly able to support the two or three boohs tchich 
he is holding at once. Menzies, a little m,an with a very 
positive eye-glass, perched on a sofa, and just visible 
among a pile of learned tomes surrounding him. Travis 
standing up with a much interlined and dog's-eared 
^schylus ill his hand, and occasionally walking about, 
or rather turning round, for the limits of the chamber 
do not admit more. The m,anner of instruction is this : 
the 2>upils construe five or six lines alternately, the con- 
struer stopping himself or being pulled up short by Tra- 
vis, at the end of every line, and a long discussion and 
annotation intervening between that line and the next, 
accompanied with consultations of some or all of the 
nine commeyitators. One of the sufferers has just been 
reading halfa-dozeri lines of the almost unknoicn tongue, 
and takes a long breath before attacking the translation^ 

Travis. Now then, Bristed, go on. 

^. " But respect thy suppliants, O earth-holding, al- 
mighty Zeus, for the male race of ^gyptus, intolerable 
in their insolence ; " vjiptv an accusative, with /card under- 
stood, isn't it ? " 

T. Don't say Kara understood ; call it aii accusative 
of reference.'''' 
9 



194 Five Years in an English University. 

JB. " Pursuing me in a," — can you say hurriedly for 
Spd/xoiai, as yovi would for 6p6/iu, in Herodotus ? " 

T. Yes ; what's the construction of /LteTo. ? 

-B. Tmesis with deSnevoi. " Seek to take forcibly me 
a fugitive ; " (Siaia adverbial, I suppose. 

T. Of course ; go on ; iroXv&pdoig ^draiai. 
B. M-araiai is an affcf lEydfievov, isn't it ? " 

T. No, I believe not. 

\^A hunt for nart] among the commentators and lexi- 
cons. Menzies, who has the Linwood nearest him^ an- 
nounces that it occurs also in the Choephorae, meaning a 
crime, and here means wanderings.] 

B. " Noisy wanderings " — will that do ? " 

T. M.dT7}v — /j-dratog — it m,ay mean crimes, or rashness 
here, perhaps. I thought it did. (Scribbles down a 
m^emorandtim for ftiture reference on the margin of his 
booTc.) I'll think of it. Go on, Menzies. 

[Menzies reads seven or eight lines; the first two or 
three are not very difficult, and he charges them with 
great determination?^ 

M. " The beam of thy balance is over all, and what 
without thee is accomplished to mortals ? O ! ! ah ! 
ah!" 

T. Never mind the interjections. 

Menzies maJces a long pause. "OSe judpTrric, "this 
enatcher," vdiog " at sea," ydiog " on land." I'm at sea al- 
together myself 

T. " This snatcher from the ship is now on land." 
Don't go to sleep, Bristed. Well, Menzies. 

If. " May you labor for these things." 

T. " Before these things, snatcher, may you perish," 
that is, before you carry me off. 

If. 'I6<p 5/1 is Egyptian, isn't it ? 

T. Probably; not Greek, at any rate. {Some one 
knocks at the door.) 



Five Years in an English University. 105 

a. I thought my sporting door was shut. 

T. Never mind, don't answer ; he'll go away. 

M. Here's some more Egyptian, or something — 

K&KKaq . vo Si'iav. 

B. [looking iqy out of a German edition} Haupt 
reads Ka/3,3af. A very good emendation. It is the her- 
ald, then, that speaks, Ka(3,3ag "come down here," fSoav 
afKpaivu, " I tell you." 

3L And what about vo Sviav ? 

T. Sviav must have something to do with dh/, but 
vo — vo, no, I don't know what that means. 

I>. [diving iqy from among three editors with an air 
of great exultatioJi.} They all give it up as hopeless. 

T. Well, then, we'll give it up as hopeless. 

[Outsider knocks at the door.} Our Mend doesn't 
give it up as hopeless. " Come down, I tell you." 

[ The outsider ^^fobablg hearing the last icords impe?'- 
fectli/, and construing them itito an invitation to come 
in, enters without more ceremony.} 

H. Ah, Dunbar, how are you ? 

[Dunbar, a grave., heavy Scotchman^ walks into the 
middle of the room {ichich only requires one step), he- 
comes aware of what is going on, says "Oh, you're busy," 
and is slowly turning to go out.} 

T. Don't go. We'll soon be through. Sit down 
and take a book. 

[B. hands Dunbar a Niebuhr's Rome, stuck full of 
ragged hits of paper, to mark places where cram is to he 
got up. Dunbar opens it at the largest of these marks, 
and sits down to a dissertation on the nexus and addic- 
tus — ahout as interesting as Fearne on Contingent Re- 
mainders. B. reads some more Greek a7id proceeds to 
translate.} 

"I see these preludes are introductory of forcible 



196 Five Years in an English University. 

miseries to me. Go in flight to the protection of the 
shrine " that's what they say okKav means — " Fero- 
cious he revels " — k1.iM active here ? 

T. No, no ; take both of your adjectives adverbially. 

JB. " He revels ferociously of purpose, in a vs^ay intol- 
erable both at sea and on land. O king, anticipate him 
by your orders " — 

T. There you go again ! What voice is Trporducjov ? 

J3. Middle. 

T, Well, then, " arrange yourselves before us — stand 
before us." Now, Menzies ! ovkovv ovkovv. 

3f. [inahing a desperate dash at the passage and ren- 
dering it with a literalness that woidd have gladdened 
the heart of a New England tutor. " Won't there be, 
"svon't there be pullings, pullings, and stickings, very 
bloody, murderous cutting ofi" of the head ? " 

[Dunbar shuts up his book, looks at Menzies as if he 
had some doubts of his sanity^ and walks solemnly out 
of the room.'] 

M. Whom does she say that of, herself or the her- 
ald ? 

B. Which you please, my dear, as the man said of 
the pui^pet-show. 

T. She says it of the herald — threatens him with the 
king's vengeance. That will do for you. 

\Ji. reads a few lines and proceeds to translate?^ 
" Go, ye cursed wretches, to the cursed " — I say, Travis, 
aiilq means matella. It's very improper, and besides 
doesn't agree with the context. \_Another long txvrning 
over of commentators — ultimately it is decided on Din- 
dorfs authority that afiida has crept into the text ridiculo 
errore for hfidda which Hesychius explains to mean a 
ship a-Ko Tov hjiav ttjv ala, because it sweeps the brine." 

" Then along the briny path of many currents, with 



Five Years in an English Unwersity. 197 

a master's insolence, yea, all bloody from my studded staff 
will I put you '' — -pauses and looks up, suspecting some- 
thing wrong because Travis has let him translate four 
lines xoithout interrupting him. 

T. \%oho has been looking out of the windoio for the 
last two minutes.'] Oh, Menzies, there's such a pretty girl 
just gone by ! Bristed, have you had your walk to-day ? 
Put on your boots and let's go out and see her. [Fx- 
eunt Travis and Menzies.] 

It should be observed in palliation of their haste, 
that a pretty face is a rare sight in Cambridge. You 
don't see one once in three months on an average. 

Scenes like the above make coaching aj^pear rather a 
farcical pei'formance, and must not be taken as a general 
type of the operation. Yet even where the communi- 
cation of knowledge takes this jocose turn, it is not the 
less true that much knowledge is communicated. 

It would indeed be too much to say that every pri- 
vate tutor is a conscientious man ; probably that could 
not be affirmed of any body of instructors amounting to 
several hundred. Some of the instances where men 
who have gone out in the Poll take Poll pupils, espe- 
cially to go on a reading party, are the grossest cases of 
governor-doing, being merely associations for the more 
convenient pursuit of idleness and dissipation on the 
part of all concerned, tutor as well as pupils. But such 
cases are happily exceptional. Nevertheless, advantage 
has been taken of them by a College dignitary here and 
there, jealous of the lucrative and independent position 
enjoyed by some of the tutors who have married (either 
giving up their fellowships or not waiting to get them, 
or even having failed to get them, for the competition 
at Trinity and John's sometimes excludes very good 
men), and support a family on the proceeds of their 



198 Five Years ^V^ an English University. 

teams. But there is little likelihood that the practice 
"will be abolished or essentially modified unless the whole 
system of the University and College examinations 
.should undergo a fundamental change. The present 
staff of College Lecturers could not, except in some few 
of the smallest Colleges, supply the demand for instruc- 
tion ; in the large Colleges their number would require 
to be multiplied by a very large factor. Nor, even 
were they thus increased, could any public lecturer have 
the intimate knowledge of his pupils' acquirements, de- 
ficiencies, capacities and wants, that the private tutor 
has, nor would he be likely to take so strong a personal 
interest in each individual of them. The etiquette and 
ofiicial distance between the two parties go a great way 
to prevent this. Moreover, any College arrangements 
would leave the vacations unprovided for, and it is in 
the vacations that the greater poi'tion of a reading man's 
work is done For my own part, I am sensible of hav- 
ing derived the greatest advantage from the gentlemen 
with whom I read at different periods, and am con- 
vinced that, without them, I should have gained but 
very moderate benefit from the public instruction of the 
College ; and I believe every man except those from 
the public schools would say the same thing. They, 
having undergone a similar drill previously, could bet- 
ter do without private Classical instruction, but even 
many of them would be hard put to it without a Mathe- 
matical coach. Nor would it be possible, even were it 
desirable, to put down private tuition in fact, though it 
might be done in name. It could not be made unlawful 
for two men to assist each other in Classics and Mathe- 
matics reciprocally. A little of this goes on as it is. 
A B.A. friend of mine reading for a Fellowship coached 
me very successfully in Mathematics for one examina- 



Fwe Years in an English Univei'sity. 199 

tion, and I paid him in kind by assisting him in Classics 
the next Long. Were the legitimate private tutors 
abolished, this sort of arrangement would become more 
frequent, and it would carry with it many of the alleged 
evils of private tuition as now existing — such as its being 
unauthorized, interfering with the public lectures, &c. — 
with the additional evil that the work would not be 
so well done. 

It certainly must be annoying to a College Don that 
a man who has perhaps taken a lower degree than him- 
self, and has no legal or formal place in the University, 
should yet enjoy a larger income and a greater local 
reputation in addition to the comforts of a family. But 
the latter is a penalty which the Don must pay for his 
official dignity and extra-local reputation; out of the 
University the private tutor is only B. A or M. A, or at 
most " late Fellow; " the Dean or tutor of a College is 
always somebody on a title page, whether he edits a 
Classic or publishes a sermon. And as to the former, 
it has been already shown that a lecturer who wants a 
large class and a reputation for lecturing, and has the 
ability to deserve them, need never fail to have a crowd- 
ed room. On the whole we may say that, admitting the 
present examinations as fixed facts, the private-tutorial 
is the best mode of preparing for them. It is dear — 
but England is a dear country, and everything connected 
with an English University education is expensive — and 
there is this peculiar compensation in the case of the ex- 
penses of the private tutor, that it repays itself by its 
own operation. The poor Undergraduate who pays 
his £7 or £14 a term to his tutor, receives the same 
amount from his pupil when himself a B.A, 



200 Five Years in an English University. 



LONG VACATION AMUSEMENTS. — INTRODUCTION OE AN 
ILLUSTRIOUS STRANGER. 

" Judicious drank."— Pope. 

HAD set to work in earnest to read for both Tri- 
poses. With my Classical tutor I attacked the 
OEdipus Tyranniis of Sophocles, an author into whose 
difficulties I was just beginning to have a little insight, 
and also wrote Composition, not in his rooms like an 
examination, but leisurely at home, as well as transla- 
tions of the most difficult passages in the Third Book 
of Thucydides. With my other coach I began Mathe- 
matics from the beginning — that is to say, from Alge- 
bra. It was a melancholy reflection that I had first 
been set to work on the mystery of x and y eight years 
before. During that space of time my advance in liter- 
ature and genei-al mental development had been definite 
and appreciable ; in Mathematics I seemed to have been 
standing still. This was the fourth time I had begun 
Algebra, and essayed with no weakness of purpose to 
get it up properly. But it was as slow and disagree- 
able work as ever, and one day after I had been blun- 
dering along for a fortnight without getting into Trigo- 
nometry, I suddenly resolved to give up the idea of 
going out in Honors, for that year at any rate. Being 
a hye-term man, I could choose the year below without 
formally degrading, and this would put me on an equal- 
ity with other men by giving me ^ second chance for a 



Five Years in an English University. 201 

Scholarship. So I threw Mathematics up, and having 
only Classics to devote myself to, read with my tutor 
five plays of Sophocles, and some Demosthenes, and by 
myself, all Theocritus and all the twenty plays of Plau- 
tus — which was one of my weaknesses, and considered 
a great loss of time, as Plautus is no helj) in Composi- 
tion, and few men read more than three or four plays 
to get a vocabulary. As my health gradually improved 
under the even temj)erature of an English summer, I 
also began to look about for some little amusement, not 
a very easy thing to find in a Cambridge Long. Dis- 
covering that I was strong enough to play billiards,* I 
entered into the exercise with much ardor, but it soon 
became so fascinating and took up so much time that I 
was obliged to wean myself of it. 

It happened that there was this summer, beginning 
before the vacation and lasting to the end of it, an un- 
usual influx of American visitors, no less than seven, at 
as many difierent times, some just landed on the shores 
of Europe, others on their way back from the East, and 
each of these visits was an incident in my tolerably 
monotonous life, and an occasion of festivity. But the 
most marked and important feature of this Long was 
my introduction of another stranger, which took place 
thus. 

Among the men up this Long, who were all reading- 
men of coiarse, I was especially intimate with two sets. 
One consisted of three or four Apostles, men who be- 
longed to different Colleges but were united by the 
bond of their club, and most of them I had known pre- 

* Billiard-rooms were not legal at that time, but their exist- 
ence was generally winked at. They are now regularly licensed 
both at Cambridge and Oxford. 



202 Five Y'ea7's m an English TTniversity. 

vious to tlieir joining it ; indeed I had introduced some 
of them to each other. For I had become at this time 
a medium — not exactly in the signification in whicli the 
term has become popular in our newspapers, yet some- 
what in a spiritual sense too), but a man who knew and 
" hung out to " clever and pleasant people, and intro- 
duced agreeable lions to one another. These men were 
all immediate aspirants for high Honors, and conse- 
quently in a fearful state of work. The Pembroker was 
booked to lead the Tripos, and at the same time had the 
pleasant prospect of getting up all his Mathematics for 
a place among the Senior Ops ; the Kingsman was the 
favorite for the next University Scholarship ; and one 
of the Trinity men, tempted by an unusual number of 
vacancies, was making a tremendous rush for a Fellow- 
ship, though it was not his last chance. I noticed these 
men's habits of reading, and it was curious to mark the 
difference. The Pembroker had not physique enough 
to work more than nine hours daily, which indeed is one 
beyond the average time allotted by experience and tra- 
dition. He would have attemjDted more, but I used to 
haul him out by main force, and compel him to take an 
hour's walk every day, under the plea that I had money 
on him and was bound to look after his training, besides 
making him talk and be idle for an hour or so occasion- 
ally of evenings. He of King's, a most regular and well- 
ordered man in mind and body, with a clear head, a 
good digestion, and a sound conscience, read straight 
on his ten hours a day, and assured me that he never felt 
bettei", and was ready to run and jump like a boy when 
he went out for his constitutional. The Trinitarian had 
a peculiar style of his own. He differed from most read- 
ing men in keeping late hours. He rose at ten, read 
from eleven to half-past three, then took a short walk ; 



Five Years in an English University. 203 

after dinner he lounged or read the papers till seven, 
when he fell to work and never stopped till two in the 
morning. This man (he is the Horace Spedding of the 
supper party) might almost be said to know the Greek 
Drama by heart ; if you gave him a line in any prologue, 
or soliloquy, or messenger's speech, he could go on with 
the next. 

Of my other set of acquaintances I saw more from 
meeting them every day in hall. They were Trinity 
Senior and Junior Sophs, some Scholars, some candi- 
dates for Scholarships next time, were chiefly reading 
men without any pretence to literature, or metaphysics, 
or " earnestness " of any sort except in work : and all 
looked up to the Trinity candidate for head of the Tri- 
pos as their great man. They took their work more 
leisurely, though getting through a fair share of it ; even 
the Coryphseus, who had most at stake, was not in- 
clined to give up his rubber when there was a chance of 
one in the evening ; and they found time to get up con- 
tinual breakfast, wine, and supper parties. One of the 
foremost in these agreeable variations of academic exer- 
cises was a man considerably the senior of his year — 
probably close upon thirty. He had entered his name 
on the books nearly ten years before, then turned Meth- 
odist, and actually became a Methodist preacher, after 
which he changed back again and entered the Univer- 
sity, as a preliminary to taking Orders in the Church of 
England. In all ordinary topics whereon men are apt 
to disagree, he and I disagreed, for he was Young Eng- 
land in politics and Puseyite in Church matters, but we 
had a kindred bond of union in a love for, and a certain- 
knowledge of that branch of the fine arts which relates 
to the aesthetics of the table. He was a connoisseur in 
venison and mutton, £|,nd a judge of old wine (one of the 



204 Five Years in an English University. 

only three Englishmen I evei- knew to have good Ma- 
deira), and possessing sufficient property of his own to 
indulge in these innocent tastes, bid fair to make a wor- 
thy member of the Church jovial. It was a very early 
weakness of mine to be curious in good dishes and 
drinks,* and I was just now dabbling in the science with 
all the zest of a man who has been for twenty months 
obliged to weigh and ponder over every morsel he eats 
and drop he drinks, and is at last beginning to be able 
to live a little like other people. At this very time the 
anti- American part of Martin Chuzzlewit was in course 
of publication, in which occurs, it will be remember- 
ed, a description of sherry cobbler. This description 
struck F.'s fancy amazingly. After meditating upon it 
for some time, he broke out one day, when six of us 
were discussing in his rooms the luxuries of the season 
— strawberries, and raspberries, and various other sorts 
of berries, which in England flourish all together, and 
the whole summer through — and imbibing the eternal 
port and sherry — one fine summer afternoon, I say, 
while we were thus occupied, he broke out with, 

" Bristed, did you ever drink sherry cobbler ? " 

I confessed that I had. 

" Can you make it ? " 

This was a question that took longer to answer. 
Though it was many years since I had last been engaged 
in the process (on which occasion a young lady from the 
neighboring nation of South Carolina had particularly 
insisted on my putting in enough sherry)^ I probably 

* According to GTrahainite and teetotal rules I ought to have 
been a confirmed drunkard and glutton long ago, yet I never find 
any difficulty in living on vegetables and water for a week at a 
time, when I want to work hard in hot weather, or have any other 
reason for following a spare diet. 



Five ITears in an English University. 205 

recollected enongli of the theory to put it into practice 
again ; but there was a difficulty in procuring some of 
the requisite materials — ice for instance. Here they 
looked astonished, ice, as it is commonly understood in 
England, that is ice-cream, being a very common article 
of consumption at Cambridge. But simple ice, suffi- 
ciently clear to be put into a beverage, was at that time 
unknown in England ; they have become familiar with it 
since, thanks to Lake Wenham. However, the original 
mover of the matter thought he had sufficient influence 
with the confectioners, or, failing that, chemical knowl- 
edge enough of his own, to obtain the rare luxury by 
artificial means ; and two others of the party undertook 
to procure the necessary description of straws. So I 
invited the company to meet in my room three days 
from that time and try sherry cobbler. 

It was not necessary to put a private laboratory at 
work for freezing the ice. The crack confectioner of 
the place undertook to supply it, though somewhat puz- 
zled by the order, coupled as it was with one for soda- 
water glasses, or tumblers of the largest size ; and equally 
puzzled were the milliners' girls at the application of 
our foraging party for straws. But all these preliminary 
difficulties being happily overcome, the six assembled 
on the appointed day in my summer room (I was lux- 
urious enough to have two) to test the transatlantic 
beverage, i was conscious of ten curious eyes Avatch- 
ing my every movement, as I pi'oceeded to concoct the 
cobbler. Having at length arranged it to suit my taste, 
I took an experimental suck, put in another straw, and 
handed the glass over to our authority, who, grave as a 
judge, proceeded to the trial. The eyes of the party 
were now directed to him with an anxiety in which I 
alone did not participate, the few drops imbibed having 



206 Five Years in an English University. 

satisfied me that the national beverage was able to take 

care of itself. F laid hold of the straw and applied 

his lips to it for a few seconds without manifesting any 
emotion in his features. Then he paused a moment, 
took a longer draught and rolled up his eyes, making a 
great display of the whites — a trick he had learned 
during his excursion into the Methodist Church — then 
removing his lips reluctantly from the straw, he uttered 
his oracular decision, ^^ It will doP Forthwith every 
man seized a knife and a lemon, and the manufacture of 
cobblers went on. I do not undertake to say that these 
were the first made in England, but they certainly were 
the first made at either University : it did not take long 
to naturalize them at Cambridge. As the beverage is 
a much weaker one than the Cantabs had been in th.e 
habit of drinking, besides that it requires to be imbibed 
more slowly than unmixed wine, I may congratulate 
myself on having done something to jDromote the cause 
of sobriety, as Avell as of table £esthetics. But repub- 
lics are not the only communities that show themselves 
ungrateful to their benefactors. In less than three years 
the origin of the drink was forgotten. Before I left the 
University, an Eton Freshman at a wine party asked 
me if we drank sherry-cobbler in America ! 



Five Years in an English University. 207 



A SECOND EDITION OF THIKD TEAE. — A CRACK CLAS- 
SICAL COACH. — COMMEMORATION SPEECH. — I BET 
ON THE WINNING MAN. 

Kafiipai SiavXov BaTspov kuXov 7rd2,iv. — ^sch. Agam. 344. 

JUST at the end of the vacation every one feels it a 
duty to himself to go someichere for a little while. 
I went to visit a friend residing near Cheltenham. Mes- 
merism, the Water Cm-e, and some other German nov- 
elties had just then possessed the good people in that 
part of the country, and I was induced to try the pre- 
vailing panacea, which I underwent five days — and never 
before did I fully appreciate the force of the metaphor, 
to throio a wet blanket on anything. Even now it 
presents a sadly ludicrous spectacle to my mind's eye, 
as I recall myself helplessly swaddled in seven blankets 
over a wet sheet, powerless to move hand or foot ; or 
squatted in a sitz bath, trying to keep myself warm by 
reading the fire in Schiller's Bell-Song. At the end of 
the fifth day the process had to be given up in self-de- 
fence, as, in addition to certain physical obstructions, it 
brought on a lowness of spirits which rendered life a 
burden to me. 

I am aware how dangerous a thing it is for a layman, 
with necessarily limited knowledge, to meddle with pro- 
fessional subjects. In delivering any opinion upon them, 
he runs a great risk of stultifying himself But it must 
be recollected that the Water Cure was essentially un- 



208 Five Years in an English University. 

professional in the outset ; that it Avas invented — its dif- 
fei-entia or specific features, that is to say — by an illiter- 
ate peasant; and, though some of the faculty have been 
induced partially or entirely to countenance it, pro- 
claimed itself from the first antagonistic to the ordinary 
treatment of regular physicians. In making, therefore, 
a very brief digression on the Water Cure, I do not con- 
sider myself intruding on any professional or scientifio 
ground. 

The idea of drawing bad humors out of the body, 
through the action of the skin, excited by the applica- 
tion of cold water, is a neat, simple, and plausible theory ; 
but its disciples overlook one important counteracting 
fact, the tendency of continual external applications of 
cold to produce congestion and a stoppage of the ani- 
mal functions. A person with a tendency to imperfect 
circulation, and the ordinary consequences of it — cold 
extremities, constipation, irregular action of the heai't, 
&c. — will find all these symptoms fearfully increased by 
any attempt at the Water Cure ; indeed the operator 
upon me confessed, after I had thrown him up, that 
those in whom the last-mentioned symptom existed 
ought not to attempt undergoing the treatment, although 
he had admitted me as a patient, with full knowledge of 
what my chief difficulty was. No doubt great benefit 
has been derived from the treatment in some cases. 
When a man with a naturally strong constitution has 
fallen into idle or sedentary habits, and by luxurious liv- 
ing and insufficient bodily exercise has clogged a ma- 
chine originally good, the shock and irritation produced 
by the cold applications may give him a fresh start, 
which is aided by the altered regimen, Literary men 
with means enough to live well, and addicted to a pro- 
fuse use of tobacco, are often in this plight. But the 



Five Tears in an English University. 209 

rough-washing which succeeded so admirably with the 
hide-bound cow that was the first hydropathic patient, 
and answers for many a strong man who has hide-hound 
himself by working his stomach and brain too much 
and his legs too little will be death to a weak man or a 
delicate woman. And it may further be questioned 
whether these strong men grown rusty do not derive 
most of the benefit they gain from the accessories of the 
system — from the regular hours, the long walks, the 
simple and unstimulating diet; and whether, if they 
adopted the same early rising, the same out-door exer- 
cise — enough to give a man a good sweat every day, 
which every man ought to have — the same temj^erate 
regimen, Avith such use of cold water as cleanliness 
and comfort prompt — they might not receive just as 
much benefit without going through the daily purgatory 
of wet sheets, sitz baths, and the like, and with less waste 
of the vital powers.* Certain it is that those who have 
been at a Water Cure Establishment, and profess and 
really appear to have received much temporary relief, 
are apt, after a few years, to re-apply to it, which can 
only arise from one of two things, or the combined in- 
fluence of both. Either a great part of the benefit de- 
rived from the treatment is owing to the attendant regi- 
men, and when that regimen ceases the original evil re- 

* A man's -whole system is renewed (physiologists tell us) 
once in about seven years. One effect of Hydropathy seems to be 
to produce this change in a quicker period, and — as we may sup- 
pose every man good for so many things, unless cut short by acci- 
dent — to burn the candle faster. 

A literary frien d once wrbte to me about the great good he had 
derived from the "Water Cure. It came out that at the same time 
he -was in the habit of taking daily horse exercise, which I begged 
him to practise years before, as the only effectual remedy for con- 
stant biliousness. 



210 Five Y'ears in an English University. 

turns ; or else the Water Cure gives, in some eases, a 
temporary excitement to the system, which, like other 
excitements, is followed by a corresponding reaction, 
and requires to be renewed. 

On returning to Cambridge, at the commencement 
of the Michaelmas Term, I was stimulated by gaining 
the English Essay Prize, and soon after set to work with 
one of the two crack Classical tutors. For as there were 
two Mathematical coaches of eminence, so were there 
two Classical ; only the former had a reputation for dif- 
ferent styles of men, while between the latter there was 
somewhat of a rivalry, especially this year, when each 
was coaching a candidate for the top of the Tripos. It 
was doubtful whether these professed trainers of " men 
among the first five" were exactly suited for me, or 
whether I was likely to do credit to their mode of in- 
struction ; but a desire of seeing all I could of the dif- 
ferent ways of teaching, and some little curiosity as to 
what stand I could j)ossibly hope to take (which a tutor 
of such experience would probably be able to determine 
pretty nearly), induced me to read with the oracle of 
the Shrewsbury men, who had in hand at that time nearly 
all the Trinity set mentioned in the last chapter. I 
must have puzzled this gentleman exceedingly, my read- 
ing ran in so different a line from that of most of his pu- 
pils, and my way of doing things was so different. When 
he gave me Elegiacs or Alcaics to write, I used to sit 
looking very desperate at them for a long time, and then 
produce something exceedingly lamentable, not exactly 
in the way of false quantities, but very unclassical and 
prosaic ; and as he was not backward in slanging — one 
of the requisites of a good coach, as has been remarked 
— he would give it to my unfortunate Compositions 
right and left. Once I let some verses fall into the fire» 



Five Years in an English University. 211 

and was going to pick tliem out. " Let them go ! " 
quoth he, " that's the best place for them." On the oth- 
er hand, I used at times to hit off translations from Aris- 
tophanes, and other difficult authors, in a style that won 
commendation from him. I recollect once doing a long 
bit from the Atnphitruo of Plautus into blank verse, and 
handing it up to him with an air that said, " There ! you 
must admire that whether or no." Our way of working 
with him, I should say, was this. There were three 
rooms on the first floor of the house, the upper part of 
which he and his family occupied : in one of these he 
used to hear sometimes one pupil construe, sometimes 
two or three in a class on Pindar or some other favorite 
author ; and in the other two his pupils were writing 
Compositions and Translations, with nothing but the 
usual amount of stationery to assist them. Sometimes, 
however, we could not help asking one another for a word. 
Occasionally, but rarely, we took extra Composition to 
do at home. I read part of the JlapaTrpealSeia, one of De- 
mosthenes' Ox'ations that every body reads ; and then 
he broke off in the middle, said I could do that well 
enough, and had better go on with Aristotle — which 
I did, taking up the Nicomachean Ethics where I had 
left them off in the Spring, and continuing with the 
Fourth and Fifth Books. He had his little diversions, 
too, as well as Travis, and som-etimes would break out 
in the middle of a long sentence with some question 
about Webster or Calhoun. I read this Term like a 
man with a sole eye to the Tripos ; the only Trdpepyov I 
had was deliverhig my Commemoration Speech — not 
writing it ; that I had done at Cheltenham — and attend- 
ing an Epigram Club that some of us had started. The 
Speech is delivered by the author of the First Prize 
Declamation. He chooses his own subject. I took for 



212 Five Years in an English University. 

mine The Principle of Liberality^ chiefly for the pleas-- 
lire of having a fling at the Antediluvians in Church and 
State. It did vex a few, and by way of losing none of 
the efiect, I had it printed. Of this Composition I felt 
a little proud — not for any particular merit that even 
myself could discern in it, but because it was the means 
of my making a valued acquaintance. 

There was one of our Fellows whose reputation with 
the University at large was that he had been Senior 
Wrangler some years before; with his friends, under 
which term a very small body of men was comprehend- 
ed, this was the least of his claims to regard. He was 
of old family and good fortune, a liberal in politics, and 
had his physical strength and development at all kept 
pace with his mental, would probably at this moment be 
representing the City of Bath in Parliament. But his 
health had broken down from too much study and 
thought, even before he entered the University, and 
while an Undergraduate he read but three or four hours 
daily; being, however, one of those Mathematical gen- 
iuses who are born to be Senior Wrangler, he carried 
off the prize to the particular discomfiture of the John- 
ians. But whereas geniuses of this kind are frequently 
one-sided and very much abroad in other subjects, he 
had knowledge enough of other branches to have given 
him a reputation without his Mathematics. He was an 
excellent Metaphysician, which caused him to be distin- 
guished for his proficiency in the Doctrine of Chances, 
where a mere Mathematician is almost sure to fail ; a 
very good Latin and Italian Scholar, and not deficient 
in French, while his acquaintance with the literature of 
his own language was wide and varied. Still it was not 
so much the extent of his information — for there were 
several men in the University, John Grote for instance, 



Five Years in an English University. 213 

whose range covered more ground — that struck one so 
much as the power he had over it. His mind was the 
best arranged and most symmetrical I ever encountered. 
Whatever he knew was in its place and ready for use. 
As to his moral qualities he was a thorough gentleman, 
with a suavity and amiability that no bodily suffering 
could disturb, the purest taste, the loftiest principle. 
Though of moderate stature and so thin and fragile that 
it seemed as if a violent gust of wind might blow him 
bodily away, his personal appearance was dignified and 
commanding. His features were very regular and very 
expressive (a rare combination), and a fancy he had of 
parting his long hair down the middle, gave his head an 
exceedingly picturesque appearance. Once an Oxonian 
dining at the Trinity Fellows' table, was impressed by 
the intellectual and interesting countenance opposite him, 
and asked if it did not belong to a poet ; when informed 
that the object of his curiosity was a Senior Wrangler, 

he could hardly conceal his disappointment. But E 

did have a re2:)utation for poetry, so far at least as writ- 
ing verse translations went. 

It was a day or two after Commemoration (about 
the middle of November), that on entering the College 
gate, after a post-prandial lounge at the Union, I was 
informed by Moonshine — such was the sobriquet of our 

rubicund-nosed porter- — that Mr. E had been at my 

rooms inquiring for me. How he knew, it was hard to 

say, as E lived two courts off and I three ; but these 

College servants, like some others, have a knack of 
finding out all that is going on. Now, in a place where 
intellect and acquirements are the highest standard of 
nobility, such a call was like the summons of a prince, 
or, to take a comparison nearer home, I felt as the editor 
of the might, if his Excellency the President of the 



214 Five Years in an English University. 

United States had sent a special messenger to request 

his presence. I crowded sail immediately for E 's 

quarters, which were up in a turret, litei-ally, for the en- 
trance was, and by a most break-neck staircase, though 
when you were fairly inside the second door, about half 
a house opened upon you. There was the usual amount 
of awkwardness and hesitation on both sides, while I 
stated the reason of my visit, and he infoi-med me that 
his object in calling was to look at my Commemoration 
Discourse, if a copy was visible, as he had heard its de- 
livery very imperfectly. (No wonder, for the ]Dulj)it 
had been placed in exactly the most inaudible situation, 
and the Hall, however well calculated for purposes of 
feeding, and holding examinations, was a most unacous- 
tic i^lace to speak in.) We gradually fell into conver- 
sation upon other matters, till lighting on Old English 
Ballad Poetry, which happened to be rather a hobby 
with both of us, we kept up an animated conversation 
to a late hour, and after that night frequently exchanged 
visits. 

The Epigram Club was an idea started one evening 
by six or eight of us. The number was increased to 
thirteen, none of whom, I am happy to say, have gone 
to the " land o' the leal " yet, notwithstanding the omen.* 
Some of us were very heavy men to all appearance, and 
our first attempts mild enough, but Cantabs have a thor- 
ough way of taking up and carrying out anything they 
lay hold of, and we made rapid progress. It surprised 
me to see how much wit could be knocked out of mate- 
rials so solid. Ultimately some of our productions were 

* There was a rich bull committed by one of this Society. The 
club having to meet in his rooms on a certain evening, he •wrote 
twelve notices, and then wearied himself for half an hour trying 
to recollect wJw the thirteenth member was. 



Five Years in an English University. 215 

informally requested for Punch, and some for other pub- 
lications. But with true English reserve the Society 
came to an agreement that all their transactions should 
remain in manuscript. Our rival candidates for Senior 
Classic wei'e both members of this club, as they are now 
both contributors to the same Magazine. They were 
the best of friends, and both wrote very good verses ; 
the Small Colleger was felicitous in imitating Macaulay 
and Coleridge, and the Trinitarian elaborated perfect 
burlesques of the Popian versification and the University 
Prize Poems. 

They were very good friends; but their supporters 
and seconds sometimes clashed a little. The Trinity 
set, who had put me down as wanting in proper feeling 
for the honor of my College, still professed strong hopes 
that our man would lead the Tripos, and being much 
bantered by them, I occasionally resorted to the true 
English argument, "What '11 you bet?" The odds 
were certainly against me, as I backed my man to be 
not only Senior Classic, but First Chancellor's Medalist, 
and to be a Medalist at all he must be a Senior Optime 
in Mathematics. This part of the business he accom- 
plished with that tight shave which is rather gratifying 
to a Classical man, as it shows that he has thrown away 
no more time on Mathematics than was absolutely neces- 
sary. The Trinity man, who might easily have been a 
Wrangler, was also among the Senior Optirnes, but 
twenty-four places higher. 

The Mathematical Tripos this winter was remark- 
able for the total houleversement of all the results of all 
the College examinations. The favorite was Senior 
Wrangler, but scarcely another man of the thirty-seven 
Wranglers occupied his presumed place, positively or 
relatively. Om- best man from Trinity was only sixth, 



216 Five Years in an English TIni'oersity. 

but lie beat two otbei's of tbe College wbo were expect- 
ed to be among the first five. 

It was about this time (the middle of January), that 
my tutor, having made up his mind about my chances 
for next year, took occasion to deliver his opinion upon 
them. " You can get a First Class in the Tripos," * said 
he, " but you will have to work for it." I told him that 
working hard was with me out of the question, that I 
could only read about five hours a day, and had to get 
up all my Matheinatics which would take the whole last 
Long. He intimated that I ought to work at Composi- 
tion five or six hours a day for six months to bring me 
up to the standard, " and as you can't do that," said he, 
" actum estJ'' Then he advised me to go out in the Poll. 
This is the course which many a man, Mathematical as 
well as Classical, takes out of pride, when he finds that 
from early idleness, ill-health, or any other cause, his De- 
gree will not be equal to what he thinks his abilities de- 
serve. The subject was discussed by us at intervals for 
several days, but my mind was pretty well made up. 
After the first two or three months of my illness, when 
it was evident that recovery Avould be a work of years, 
and probably never complete at that — from that time I 
gave up perforce ambitious desires, and contented my- 
self with playing such second part as I could. I would 
not be ashamed of trying for the best of everything, and 
failing. So I told my tutor that I was willing to take 
my chance ; at any rate I would have a shy at a College 
Scholarship, though that involved another dose of Math- 
ematics. By way of taking a surfeit of Classics previous 
to beginning this disagreeable work, I went in to the 
University Scholarship examination, which was a hollow 

* The Classical Tripos is generally spoken of as the Tripos, the 
Mathematical one as the Degree Examination. 



Five Years in an English University. 217 

thing, as sporting men say. The Kingsman, who had 
rnn last year's successful competitor so close, was the 
favorite, and won in a canter. He too was one of the 
lights of our Epigram Club, and afterwards became an 
Apostle. The examination was a very fair one ; less 
cram and fewer out-of-the-way passages than are usual 
in a University Scholarship. 

Just after this came on the Classical Tripos, for the 
head of which our two friends were running, neck and 
neck. The Pembroke man, of an excitable disposition 
naturally, and rendered unusually nervous by indilFerent 
health, scarcely gave himself sufficient food or rest, ran- 
sacked all manner of note-books and collections of 
marked passages, and seized upon all the eligible Eng- 
lish verse he could find to translate into Greek and Latin, 
till he had acquired a pace which was astounding to be- 
hold. His rival went on in the same quiet way as ever, 
doing his work beautifully, but just at the old rate, and 
never missing his Saturday night whist or breaking in 
on any of his old habits. It required some philosophy 
in a man to care so little whether he was first or second. 

On the first day of the Examination, one of the thir- 
ty candidates for Classical Honors was frightened at 
the leading paper and fairly ran oiF, not appealing at any 
of the subsequent ones. He was a sharp man enough, 
and had taken a very respectable Mathematical degree. 

I was now undergohig for the third time since I en- 
tered the University, and the I-don't-know-hovv-many- 
eth time in my life, a course of low Mathematics. A 
Bachelor friend who felt an interest in my success, un- 
dertook to coach me quite en ami, which kindness I par- 
tially repaid afterwards with Classics for his Fellowship. 
It really seemed as if the repeated efforts of yearo had 
made some impression on the repulsive subject. I knew 
10 



218 Five Years in an English TIniversity. 

more Algebra than I had ever done before — indeed I 
felt rather a proficient in it, and a little circumstance 
hapjDened about this time to confirm such a half-serious, 
half mock infatuation on my part. Our Kingsman, after 
having attained his University Scholarship, suddenly 
took it into his head to learn Mathematics, and to per- 
suade the other four or five Undergraduates of his Col- 
lege to learn with him — for which purpose they were 
obliged to procure a new College Mathematical lecturer, 
the old one being a Classical man, and so far as his Math- 
ematics were concerned, a fiction. As these Etonians 
had never read any thing before in the shape of science, 
except ordinary arithmetic, they were in the very infan- 
cy of Mathematical conceptions, and I used, in my eve- 
ning wanderings, to drop into my friend's room now and 
then and give him a little assistance in the mystery of 
equations. When I repeated this to my coach, he burst 
out into an Homeric inextinguishable laughter at the 
idea of my being able to teach any Algebra — finding in 
the lowest deep a lower still. I may here mention, in- 
cidentally, that my occasional pupil, somewhat about this 
time, left off being a Puseyite, and adopted more liberal 
and Arnold-like views on Church matters. Any one 
who has great faith in the pure sciences, may attributo 
this important change to the Algebra if he chooses. Af- 
ter Algebra, I took up low Trigonometry, which I had 
never probably studied before, and crammed it into me 
as far as De Moivre's theorem, and some other pleasant 
little formulse of the same nature and magnitude, meas- 
uring half a page long a-piece ; and all these I certainly 
understood — that is to say, could trace the working of 
them, and see how they were arrived at — but never 
could perceive any particular use or discern the least 
beauty in them. I thought of making an attempt on 



Five Years in an English University. 219 

Conic Sections (which ai'e read analytically in the Cam- 
bridge books), but went no further than copying sundry 
manusci'ipts of my former coach (him of the large team), 
fur my attention was required by the First Three Sec- 
tions of Newton, which, with Euclid, were to be my 
great dependence. The Euclid I knew by experience 
was to be got up in two days, so I put it off for the last 
two ; the Newton I polished up with great zeal — it was 
something new to me and not altogether uninteresting. 
The book, which for a long time existed only in the man- 
uscripts of Johnian lecturers, contains a series of Eng- 
lish demonstrations of the Lemmas of the JPrincipia^ 
which are only affirmed in the original Latin. I forget 
whether it was before or after this that I assailed low 
Statics, and, after getting up the Mechanical Powers, Vis 
Viva, and other formulae, mostly from Whewell's books, 
went so far as to attempt several problems, but I never 
remember doing a whole one. A very poor array of 
Mathematics this, to take in to an Examination, but it 
was only as a sort of pass to give my Classics a chance. 
On them I could bestow but little time ; what I did as- 
sign to them proved to be very badly laid out, for hav- 
ing only time to attempt getting up one kind of verse 
Composition, and calculating that Hexameters were 
likely to be set, I read straight through Six Books of the 
jEneid, and then wrote some hundred Hexameter lines 
for practice. Of course, Elegiacs were set. 

These verses are hardly in the line of a man who has 
not been brought up on the English public-school sys- 
tem, but as they have great weight in the Examinations, 
one cannot afford to neglect them entirely. Their im- 
portance was particularly impressed upon me just then, 
by the result of the contest for Senior Classic, which was 
declared in favor of the Pembroke candidate, thus en- 



220 Five years in an JEJnglish University. 

dorsing the decision of the University Scholarship ex- 
aminers the year before. His success was chiefly owing 
to a very superior copy* of Elegiacs. As these verses, 
written in a limited time, under the eye of examiners, 
and with no means of assistance beyond the requisite 
stationery, afibrd a better example of what a crack ver- 
sifier can do than any of the Prize Odes, which are care- 
fully and leisurely composed at home, I make no apolo- 
gy for inserting them here. 

Unda repercussse radiabat imagine Lxinae, 

Nee vox per noctem quart tulacunque fuit, 
Saxeaque allisi fluctus ad littora, blando 

Nescio quid visi murmure dulce queri. 
Hue illuc rapido pede Laodamia vagata est, 

Devia per suavem, suavior ipsa, locum ; 
At gena, nam ssevo flos est demessus Amori 

Mutarat pura lilia cana rosa. 
Roscida cseruleo stat gutta tacentis ooello ; 

Scilicet est miseras vaticinata vices ! 
Ssepe aliquis moriens somni est sub imagine visus 

Plangere ; qui periit Protesilaua erat. 
Iverat innumero stipatus milite princeps, 

Fortibus intererat fortior ille puer. 
nia quidem, excidiis quserens sacra moenia Trojse 

Contulit infesto cum Phryge signa manus. 
Plurima sed totum nova Luna impleverat orbem 

Et gyros annus versus in ipse suos ; 
At neque vir sancta rediens nee epistola Troja 

Nuntia quo fato militet ille venit. 

The making of Greek and Latin verse is one of the 
most showy manifestations of English Scholarship, and 
certainly the most surprising one. To read an ordinary 
Classical author ad aperturam lihri, certainly implies a 
good acquaintance with his tongue ; but it is readily ac- 

* " Copy " is applied exclusively to papers of verse Composition. 
It is a public-school term transplanted to the University. 



Five Years in an English University. 221 

counted for by practice and study, and is only more dif- 
ficult than reading any book in a modern language by as 
much as the ancient language is the harder of the two 
to acquire. To write Latin and Greek prose with facil- 
ity and elegance, though involving a further command 
of the two languages, has also its parallel in our expe- 
rience with respect to modern tongues. But to write 
verse in any language, seems to imply such a familiarity 
with all its niceties as can only be acquired by one who 
makes it as it were his second mother-tongue. Many a 
person who can conA^erse freely in German, or read an 
Italian book with nearly the same ease as an English one, 
or write a correct letter in French, would shrink from 
the idea of attempting poetry or verse in either of these 
languages. And there are two additional features which 
increase the surprisingness of the performance. First, 
as the Classical languages are no longer habitually spok- 
en in the English schools, the scholars lose one of the 
principal ordinary means of acquiring the knowledge of 
a strange tongue — conversation. Secondly, the standard 
of these verses, as specimens of metrical composition, 
is very high. In mere smoothness and elegance they 
absolutely surpass the majority of the ancient models. 
To end a Pentameter with a trisyllable, as Propertius 
does ^yassim ; to make Csesuras which are common with 
Lucretius ; to put the enclitic after a verb instead of the 
preceding substantive or adjective of a clause, as Ovid 
himself does — like moestus adestqxie dies — all these are 
inadmissible licenses. One thing the reader will be apt 
to infer, that such an accomplishment can only be the 
fruit of long and special training — which is emphatically 
the case. A public-school boy begins certainly as early 
as ten years of age, if not earlier, to grind at " longs 
and shorts." The first step is to make him do ncmsense 



222 Five Years in an English University. 

verses, that is to say, the scheme of a line is given him 
thus — 



which he may fill up with any words that will scan with- 
out regard to their meaning or want of meaning, JPer- 
gite praecipites quospridem Jupiter inquit, or even great- 
er nonsense than this. Then an exactly literal transla- 
tion of a Latin line is given him ia the precise order of 
the original, then a line with the words transposed, and 
so on through several intermediate steps, till he is fairly 
launched upon translating English verse into Hexame- 
ters and Pentameters, or " Longs and shorts," as the Ele- 
giac metre is commonly called. This is the stanza at 
which they are most practised, and at which they acquire 
the greatest facility. After this they are most worked 
at Alcaics. Hexameters are also written, but not so 
frequently (Eton is almost the only place where they do 
them well), and Sapphics very rarely. It is a sort of 
traditionary prejudice, that Hexameters and Sapphics 
are hardly ever good, and the theory verifies itself by 
causing them to be less cultivated. An Eton boy sends 
up a copy of Longs and Shorts once or twice a week for 
seven years of his school life. Probably three-fourths 
of these boys never thought of writing a couplet of 
English verse, or could do it if set at it. But we have 
not yet done with the complications of this singularly 
artificial system. A false quantity is the unpardonable 
sin, yet the actual pronunciation affords no clue whatever 
to the quantity of the penults of dissyllables ; cano I 
sing, and cano the ablative of canus hoary, regis of a 
king, and regis thou ridest, being pronounced exactly 
alike.* And lest the swing and intonation of the voice 

* As the subject of proniinciatipn is one -wMch. excites some 



Five Years m an English University. 223 

itself should give any assistance, it is the custom to read 
Classical verse as much like prose as p^ossible. Having 
noticed this during the recitation of some of the Com- 
mencement Odes, which, as the successful candidates 
read them, could never have been taken for verse by a 
person without the printed book, I inquired about this 
peculiarity from men of three or four different schools, 
and they all certified to the generality of the practice, 
without, so far as I can recollect, giving any reason for, 
or defence of it. The consequence of all this is that 

little interest -with us, and about which I have often been asked 
questions, it may as well be stated briefly that students iu England 
pronounce as they do in New England, with the exception that 
they do not make false quantities in the penults of tri-syllables, 
for instance they never say Jiahebam, or Gwsdris, or ConsTiles, or 
QiiirXte», all which were common at Yale, in my day. Neither do 
they pronounce fecerat fesserat, which was considered a point of 
such importance at New Haven, that one of the Professors wrote a 
pamphlet to insist on the shortening of long vowels in the first 
syllable of Dactylic words. But they give the vowels their Eng- 
lish power, and in dissyllables lengthen by accent, not by quantity, 
thus they say md-nus ch-mus, not ma/ius domus. In Greek also the 
vowels have their English power, and the same exceptions prevail 
as in New England — the pronunciation of ai- and ei like i instead of 
a, and the preserving y hard throughout. Only they do not call 
HETo. and Kara metre and cater, as the New Haven tutors used to. 

[Within a few years an attempt to reconstruct the original clas- 
sic Latin pronunciation has found much favor with English and 
American scholars. Its principal features are giving the conti- 
nental powers to the vowels, and the hard sound to C and G be- 
fore all vowels. Some of the dipthongs remain — and are likely to 
remain — in dispute. 

The modern or Romaic pronunciation of Greek, accentual stress 
and all, has made much headway among us recently, but very little 
with the English. 

Pace the many distinguished men who have adopted it, I can 
not but consider it simply barbarous.] 



224 Five Years in an English University. 

Latin-verse writing becomes totally a matter of eye, 
though some versifiers fancy from never having analyzed 
their own mental perceptions and the growth of this ac- 
quired faculty, that ear has a great deal to do with it. 
An Eton Captain will write twenty Elegiacs in an hour, 
and twelve or fifteen Hexameters ; while at the Univer- 
sity this pace is seldom increased but the quality im- 
proves. From what has been said of this school drill- 
ing, it may be guessed that no man who begins to write 
Latin verses late in life can hope to make mitch hand 
of it. I used to take the line of laughing at the whole 
affair, and denying the sense or use of it. Sometimes I 
turned the tables on the over-critical ones, as to what 
was, or what was not classical. The reader may per- 
haps remember Captain Medwin's story about the School- 
master who heaped contempt on a line which Shelley 
sent up, 

" Jamjam tacturos sidera celsa putes," 

not knowing that it was taken verbatim from Ovid. A 
somewhat similar case fell under my oM'n observation. 
I was showing to a very precise Etonian some Elegiacs 
by a Scotch friend of mine, which I rather liked — a 
translation of Herrick's beautiful lines — 

" Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, 
Old Time is still a-flying," etc. 

The second line was — 

" Nam. fuginnt, freno non rem.oraiite, dies." 

The verses were by a Scotchman, and, of course, must 
be bad. My Etonian objected to the phrase freno non 
remorante, as not authorized. I thought it good Latin, 
and said so, but not being able to find an instance, was 
obliged to give it up for the time. While going through 



Five Years in an English University. 225 

Ovid's Fasti several months afterwards, I found in the 
Sixth Book this couplet — 

" Tempora labuntur tacitisque senescimus annis, 
Et fugiunt freno non remorante dies," 

The Caledonian being taken short for a Pentameter had 
bagged the whole line. At the first public opportunity 
I proclaimed my discovery to the Etonian. There is 
nothing like sticking to your principle. He held out 
that it was inelegant Latin, nevertheless — Ovid had been 
nodding on that occasion. 

The above instance might induce a suspicion that 
there is a little centoism about this Latin-verse making. 
Such is indeed the case, and the more you read and 
write Latin verse, the more of this centoism do you dis- 
cover. One of the great effects, objects, and merits of 
the seven years' more or less grinding at school is, that 
it stores the student's mind with common-places of verse, 
lines and half-lines and quarter-lines descriptive of such 
familiar objects and occurrences as the sun or a lark 
rising, the nightingale singing, the grass growing and 
trees budding at the approach of Sjiring, etc., etc. ; and 
the faculty of utilizing this store of treasure is much in- 
creased by the character of the verses usually set to 
translate. There is a kind of English pastoral poetry — 
a school of which Shenstone is perhaps the most favor- 
able specimen — which I never found out the use of till I 
was at Cambridge. It was made and invented express- 
ly to be translated into Latin Elegiacs. 

Even where phrases and half-lines are not copied 
bodily, there is often a resemblance in structure and 
form, the new line being built after the old one ; thus — 

" Primaque ut aeria scandat alauda via," 

recalls Ovid's 

10* 



226 Five Years in an English JJnwersity. 

" Protinus tetlieria tollit in astra via ;" 
just as in Bailey's " Festus " the line, 

" The mind hath pliases as the body hath," 
is modelled upon Shakspeare's 

" The earth hath bubbles as the water hath." 

But it must be said, in fairness, that there is, at the same 
time, much original and elegant poetry to be met with 
among these compositions. Our Trinity man, who was 
second Medalist this year, had taken a Porson and ex- 
celled in Greek Composition; but this January, as if 
anticipating his rival's excellence in Latin, he distin- 
guished himself in the same way by an oi'iginal copy of 
Elegiacs, written for the Tripos Paper * — a mythological 
account of the birth and progress of Love, and his recon- 
ciliation with the Muses, that would not have disgraced 
old Naso himself One couplet was particularly ad- 
mired — 

" riava calescentem male dissimulabat Amorem 
Luna — calescebat dissimulatus Amor." 

As to the style of translation, it is of a very free or- 
der ; in fact, should in many cases be called imitation 
rather than translation. This may be seen by compar- 
ing the specimen first quoted with its original from Kirke 
White:— 

" The night it "was still, and the moon it shone 
Serenely on the sea. 
And the -waves at the foot of the rifted rock 
They murmured pleasantly, 

* See Note to the word Tri'pos, in the vocabulary of Cam- 
bridge terms. 



Five Years in an English University. 227 

When Gondoline roamed along the shore — 

A maiden full fair to the sight, 
' Though love had made bleak the rose on her cheek, 
And turned it to deadly white. 

Her thoughts they -were drear, and the silent tear 

It filled her faint blue eye, 
As oft she heard in fancy's ear 

Her Bertrand's dying sigh. 

Her Bertrand was the bravest youth 

Of all our good king's men, 
And he had gone to the Holy Land 

To fight the Saracen. 

And many a month had passed away, 

And many a rolling year. 
But nothing the maid from Palestine 

Could of her lover hear." 

One of the usual changes, the substitution of Classical 
names for modern ones, is amply illustrated here ; and 
other additions to and improvements on the original are 
obvious. I must not be misunderstood as using the 
word improvements with any sarcastic intent. Serious- 
ly, there can be no doubt that the Latin imitation is, in 
this case, better than the original, which contains much 
bad grammar to begin with. Note particularly the 
Ovidian turn of the line italicized. 

About this freedom of translation there is one thing 
to be observed, that it is a fi-eedom of addition, and not 
of retrenchment. As a general rule, you are required 
to express all the ideas of the original, and may then 
add any ornaments to fill out the measure. The trans- 
lations express all that is in the English, and a little 
more. I could not miderstand this for some time, and 
used to err by trying to translate too literally. Thus, 
when my Johniau coach, in the summer of 1843, set me 



228 Five Years in an English University. 

for the first time to write Elegiacs, and gave me as the 
subject of the experiment Moore's Last Rose of Sum- 
tner, I took one line of the Latin for every two of the 
short English lines, and began — 

Ultimus, en, solus, calicum florescit ab aestu. 
All ! comitum marcet tota venusta cohors ! 

In his copy, each of the short lines was expressed by a 
long line of Latin, thus : 

" Ultimus sestiva tenerarum e gente rosarum 
Flos desolatis eminet ille comis ; 
Lucida de toto cireum vicinia prato 
Vannit, et socite deperiere rosse." 

Only one case of packing the Latin into less space than 
the English by a good versifier ever came under my ob- 
servation ; it was where a Senior Classic translated three 
lines from Byron — ■ 

" Where the hues of the earth and the hues of the sky, 
Though different in color, in beauty may vie, 
And the purple of ocean is deepest in dye." 

by this couplet, 

" Qua coelo et terrse varius color, una venustas 
Et latices nigris subrubuere vadis." 

I have often fancied, in making comparisons of poeti- 
cal translations from the German and other modern 
languages, that our countrymen succeed better than the 
English, and that the reason of this may be found in the 
fact of most English translators being taught by their 
school experience to aim at imitation rather than trans- 
lation, and put in ornaments of their own. Certainly 
the most accurate and vigorous translator of German 
poetry in England is Carlyle — a non-University man. 
Such a principle, however, must be laid down cautiously, 



Five Years in an English University. 229 

and with allowed exceptions. Merivale's Schiller is a 
most commendable specimen of accurate rendering. 

Having given one superior specimen of Latin verse, 
I shall conclude what I have to say about it here with a 
sample from the other end of the piece. A few days 
before going in for the Tripos I wrote a translation 
from the opening of Byron's Parisina, of which my tutor 
said, " If your verses were always as good as these, you 
might get some marks for them." The following may, 
therefore, be taken as the lowest standard of what would 
pass muster in an Examination : — 

" It is the hour when from the boughs 

The nightingale's high note is heard," &o. 

Nunc, prima in terras ducente crepuscula nocte, 

Clarior e ramis vox, Philomela, tua est ; 
Nunc majore videtur amans dulcedine vota 

Dulce susurranti fundere saepe labro. 
Nunc ventique leves et aquse vicinia mcestis 

Auribus intendunt suppeditare melos ; 
Purpurei modico calices nunc rore madescunt 

Conveniunt ccelo sidera clara suo ; 
Et magis in fiiscos jam jamque abiere colores 

Oceanoque latex, arborisque comse. 

Greek verse stands on a somewhat different footing 
from Latin. It is of later date as an element of school 
education. Probably it came in with Porson, and the 
establishment of the Porson Prize by his executors did 
much to encourage it. King's College London men, 
and other Classics not from the public-schools, evince a 
preference for Greek Iambics ; they say this sort of 
Composition is more dependent on, and more a test of 
Scholarship. For my part I could never see much dif- 
ference between the two in this respect ; there always 
seemed to me as much knack and centoism in the one 



230 Five Y'ears i?i an English University. 

as in the other. Sometimes in the Porsons you will 
find a whole line, bodily trans]3lanted from a Greek Tra- 
gedian. Once in looking over one, I met with 

0T(^ XapaKTTjp k/nre(pvKe au/iarc. 

which I marked as a good line, and well might, for when 
I came to read the Medea, two years after, there it was. 

ovSslg x'^paKT^p kfnvE(pvKS cajiarL. 

Nevertheless, it is certain that many begin to write 
Iambics after entering the University, or but a short 
time before. A first-rate man, who was first Bell Scholar 
in a very well-contested year, and a candidate for Senior 
Classic until he broke down from ill health, told me he 
had never written any Greek verse till a year before he 
came up. It was one of the instances he was giving of 
his insufficient preparation on account of his invalid 
state. The fact, too, of all having a fairer start encour- 
ages more men to practise Iambics. But it must be 
owned that the best — those which get full marks at ex- 
aminations, and are handed about and copied as models 
■ — are the productions of men who have had abundant 
training. There is one school famous for sending up 
writers of Iambics — Shrewsbury — which indeed has a 
great reputation for Scholarship generally, and particu- 
larly for grammatical accuracy. 

The difficulties of Greek verse are of a higher kind 
than those of Latin, and the sort of English set to be 
translated of a higher character. Shakspeare and Mil- 
ton, Ben Jonson, Henry Taylor, Shelley's Ce?iei, the 
best English translations of Faust and Wallenstein — 
such are the books which usually furnish passages. You 
will seldom find anything very seedy set for Iambics. 
The reading and study of Shakspeare and the old Eng- 



Five Years in an English University. 231 

lish Dramatists generally has been much promoted at 
the University by the practice of writing Greek verses 
• — perhaps it is one of the best things that can be said 
for it. The style of translation, like that used in writing 
Latin verse, is very free, the main object being to show 
a knowledge of the Greek Dramas, and adopt phrases 
from them corresponding to the English ones — as if in 
translating Sophocles into English, one were to go out 
of the way to introduce as many Shaksperian words and 
phrases as possible. Even with great license of para- 
phrase, it is often exceedingly difficult to express the 
English idea in Greek, and the very best men are put to 
some straits. Thus I have seen Ben Jonson's 

" Temp'ring his greatness -with his gravity," 

rendered by (and the translator was a man of reputation 
in this way) 

ctjiaq re Tzavrag ififie'X.ug Inpa^aTO 

literally translated "and he exacted respect from all 
with good taste." 

The pace attained in writing Greek verses never 
equals that acquired in Latin, partly from the practice 
being begun later in life, partly because the work is in- 
trinsically more difficult. Twelve an hour is considered 
very fast. About twenty-eight English lines are usually 
set in the Tripos, which in rendering into Greek would 
naturally be expanded into thii'ty-five, and very few of 
the candidates finish them in the allotted two hours and 
a half Sometimes a First-Class man does not write 
more than fourteen. One year, when the first four men 
on the Tripos all finished their copy and got very nearly 
full marks, was considered a very extraordinary one. 

I have spoken of Greek Iambics only, because they 



232 Five Years in an Mnglish University. 

are the only Greek verses habitually written. Anapaests 
have occasionally been set in the Tripos, Anapaests and 
Long Trochees in the University Scholarships. Sapph- 
ics are never written except for the Greek Ode ; Ho- 
meric Hexameters, very rarely in the College, and never, 
I believe, in the University examinations. 

The following Anapaests were written by the Senior 
Medalist in 1840, who was also bracketed Senior Classic. 

'Q.8' 'Tlpaiikriq fip^ev (Siotov 
6p6fiov k^avvsLV Kav npoTekeioig 
^lOTOv '6ei^ev Kpeiaaov n jeyug 
Tuv r'av&puTTUv fj,el^6v ti irveuv 

Sai/xuv bg ejj.e7Ji.ev eaead^ai. 
banc fipecpog uv yaT.d'&fivoVj b/iuQ 
'k6vov fjVTT^Tjaev nai KLv6vvovq 

CTvyvfjv "Rpag 6ia fj.'^viv, 
KCLVTav'&a fiaxvc vi^aro Tvpurov 
TtJ ^apvSai/iovt iroTfiu, jepcrivr' 
ardT^aig araTiog nalg uv deivuv 

b(j>ecjv (jvpiyfiaT' STvavaev. 
ovTo) K?ielva Zijvog edpaa/xara 
TToAAa [loyijaag rjT^.'&e reXevruv 
ovTU nrjfiara ravSpbg ipv^vv 
Paaavi^Ei fii] ae/ivdv tc (ppovelv 

T^V t' apSTTJV EVVOflOV aoKElv. 

* " Alcides thus his race began ; 
O'er infancy he swiftly ran, 
At first the future God was more than man. 
Dangers and trials, and Juno's hate, 
E'en o'er his cradle lay in wait, 
And there he grappled first with fate. 
In his young hands the hissing snakes he pressed, 
Thus early was the deity confessed. 
Thus by degrees he rose to Jove's imperial seat. 
Thus difiB.culties prove a soul legitimately great." 



l^^ive Yews in an ^jiglish University. 233 

And now, it may be asked, how far is this Latin and 
Greek verse-making really a test of scholarship, and is 
it, as such, worth the time spent on it ? My own answer 
would be unfavorable, but I maybe somewhat prejudiced 
by the detriment which the want of the accomplishment 
caused myself Certainly it does not always follow that 
a good versifier in Greek and Latin is a good scholar. It 
befel me at the time of my final extinguishment in the 
Trijios, to be sandwiched between one of the best Latin 
versifiers and the best Greek versifier of the twenty- 
four candidates, and the best copy of Latin verses has 
been more than once sent up by a Second Class man — 
although in this examination the verse Composition pa- 
lmers count one-fifth of the whole. And sometimes high 
First Class men get but few marks for their verses. In 
the former case it may be supposed that the parties have 
come up very well prepared, and being idle during part 
of their course ; the school knack of making verses has 
stuck by them, while their acquaintance with different 
authors has not been sufiiciently kept up and and ex- 
tended. As to the converse branch of the proposition, 
it will hardly be doubted with Germany in view, that a 
man may be a very good scholar without being able to 
write Latin and Greek verses elegantly and fluently. 
The efiect of j^ractice in such matters may be illustrated 
by the habit of conversing in Latin, which German stu- 
dents do much more readily than English, simply be- 
cause the former practise it, and hold public disputes in 
Latin, while the latter have long left off " keeping Acts," 
as the old public discussions required of candidates for 
a degree used to be called. 

Classical prose Composition is of course an import- 
ant point in the training of a candidate for Classical 



234 Five ITears in an Mnglish University. 

Honors, and there are few men, even of those who ulti- 
mately go out in Mathematics alone, but have had some 
drilling in writing Latin. Greek prose is the hardest of 
all Composition, and marked highest in the Tripos ; 
there are seldom more than five or six men in a year 
who write it well. The difficulty of accentuation — a 
subordinate art requiring no small practice in itself* — 
it shares with the composition of Iambics, so it would 
seem to do the difficulties arising from the abstruse syn- 
tax of the language ; but these latter difficulties make 
themselves more felt in prose than in verse, perhaps be- 
cause there is less opportunity for centoism in the for- 
mer. In the mere matter of words, too, a serviceable 
poetic vocabulary is much easier to collect and retain 
than a prose one. 

Though the method of translation is of course more 
literal than that adopted in rendering verse, there is still 
sufficient margin left for embellishment, and much im- 
jDortance is attached to displaying a knowledge of idiom. 
A man will frequently go a little, or more than a little 
out of his way to bring in a bit of what, in stage phrase- 
ology, would be called business. And among single 
words those most unlike the corresponding ones in Eng- 
lish are preferred. Thus, you must not say administrare 
rempublicam for taking part in public affairs, but capes- 
sere rempuhlicam, though the former word is used by 
good Roman authors as much as the latter. When I 
was at my best for Latin prose, I had a collection of idi- 
omatic phrases, six or eight of which I would have en- 

* Where quantity is the giiide to pronunciation, accentuation 
must be mere matter of eye and memory, and tiie general rules to 
wMcli it is reduced are subject to numerous and arbitrary ex- 
ceptions. 



Five Years in an English University. 235 

gaged to bring into the translation of any half-page of 
ordinary English that could be given me ; and those who 
were better skilled in Greek prose than myself could do 
the same with that. The term Composition seems in 
itself to imply that the translation is something more 
than a translation. 

Original Composition — that is, Composition in the 
true sense of the word — in the dead languages is not 
much practised. There is a Latin essay written in the 
University Scholarshij) Examination, and another in the 
Medical Examination ; there are the Commencement 
Exercises and the College Declamations already men- 
tioned, and there are verse prizes for Second and Third- 
year men in most of the Colleges. At Trinity there 
are three open to all the three Years. Composition in 
Greek there is none except the Browne Ode. 

The present is not an unfit occasion for saying some- 
thing more about the style of translation required from 
Greek and Latin into English. It might be supposed 
from the freeness which characterizes the Composition, 
that a like license of paraphrase and ornament was al- 
lowed in translating yVom the dead languages as well as 
into them. But such is not the case. The greatest ac- 
curacy is required, under pain of " losing marks ; " the 
meaning of the smallest particle must be expressed, the 
least shades of difference between nearly synonymous 
words strictly conveyed. This accuracy, however, not 
only does not require, but absolutely forbids had Eng- 
lish^ which would be surely visited with the loss of a 
large per centage of marks " for style." Whenever a 
difficulty occurs of such a nature that it cannot be en- 
tirely set forth in the translation, explanation in a note 
is allowable — in some cases required. 

A particular instance or two will give a more intelli- 



236 Five Years in an English University. 

gible idea of the accuracy required than any general des- 
cription. 

I had been translating for my private tutor a passage 
in the Medea, where she asks Jason, 

Ti Spuaa ; fiuv ja/xovaa Kal npodovaa ae ; 

When he came to my translation of this line he said, 
" But you haven't marked the peculiarity here. What's 
the difference between a man's marrying and a woman's ? " 
I replied that in Greek the respective terms were yafieiv 
and -yafieiad-ai, as in Latin duco and nuho. " Well but 
you see Medea uses the active here ; you should have 
explained in a note that this is because she puts herself 
in Jason's j)lace, otherwise an examiner might think that 
you didn't know the distinction." 

In the Classical Tripos of our year occurred these 
lines from the Andromache of Euripides — 

Oii/c ovv EKEivov Tcijia Taneivov T'e/ia j 
Apdv sv' KUKug 6' ov. iitjS' awoKTeivetv j3ia. 

which most men would translate off-hand, 

" And are not my things his, and his mine ? 
Yes, to do them good, not ill, nor slay by Tiolence." 

And this would be right were jut) the negative employed, 
but the nse of ov (in rather a singular position here) 
shows that the negation refers not to the infinitive in the 
second line, but to the indicative (elal understood) in the 
first, so that the translation should run, " To do them 
good they are, to do them ill or slay by violence they 
are not." And the knowing ones, who were in this case 
th'3 best men of our year, and the best scholars general- 
ly (for the last examination papers become objects of 
immediate interest to all the reading circle) declared at 



Five Years hi an Eaglisli University. 237 

once that the whole passage — thirteen lines — had been 
set for this one catch. 

These two cases fell within my own experience ; a 
third was matter of tradition. In the Tripos of 1840, 
the Trinity man who was bracketed Senior Classic trans- 
lated, probably from inadvertence jj elp^ri, peace, in a 
passage from Thucydides, where the article was of im- 
portance. When the examiners came to compare notes, 
and he was found to be on an equality with his Johnian 
competitor, one of them, a Shrewsbury man, held out 
a long while against the bracket, saying it was a shame to 
make a man Senior Classic who could translate ^ elprivTi, 
peace, without the article. 



238 Five Years in an English JJniversity. 



THE SCHOLARSHIP EXAMHsTATION". — NEQUB SEMPER 
ARCUM TEI^DIT APOLLO. 

Tjg Tt-drog dShg. — ThEOCK. IdYLL. XVI. 

THE result of the examination for the Chantellor's 
Medals is declared very soon after that of the 
Tripos. The two old competitors had a hard fight for 
it again, and again the Pembroke man came out first by 
a neck. It now wanted but a month of the College 
Scholarship, and I was in the agony of Newton and 
Statics, as before stated. The only diversions I had were 
the Plato Lectures, which I could not lose, happen what 
would, and occasionally attending a talk at the Union 
(where the Debates were beginning to look up), or at 
our little Historical. The latter was beautifully ar- 
ranged as regarded diSerent sets of opinions for keep- 
ing up lively discussions ; it had been founded chiefly 
by Liberals, but there were Tories and Conservatives 
enough in it to defend their side vigorously in a politi- 
cal question. The Union was very one-sided. Its ma- 
jority professed a species of mixture of old Toryism and 
Young Englandism, a fusion more bigoted than either 
of its bigoted elements. Will it be believed that they 
actually passed, and by a considerable majority, a vote 
affirming that it would be expedient to re-establish mon- 
asteries in England ! Such Liberals of us as there were, 
however, did not by any means let this or any other 
question go by default. We lifted up our voices pretty 



Five Yeai's in an JEnglish University. 239 

loudly, nor indeed did we confine ourselves to the ordi- 
nary course of debate. A queer friend of mine wrote 
a ballad ludicrously showing up the would-be monks ; 
two of us had it printed, sent it round as a circular to 
the whole University, and wound up the joke by getting 
it attributed to Travis, to his utter disgust, both because 
he was just at that time dubitating whether he might 
not go into the Church after all, and because the dog- 
gerel was not quite equal to Ingoldsby, and popular 
prejudice pronounced it even worse than it really was. 

And now, somewhere about the end of March or the 
beginning of April (for it was just after Easter, and ac- 
cording to the old saw — 

" Let Easter happen when it will, 
It's always in March or April,") 

the important time for us Senior Sophs of Trinity drew 
nigh. There are three or four different sets of men 
among the Third Year Candidates, with different inter- 
ests and aspirations. First, those who are looking for- 
ward to Fellowships. It might be supposed that, as 
the Fellows are only in the proportion of one to three 
of the Scholars, any man with a reasonable prospect of 
a Fellowship ahead would be sure of the Scholarship 
introductory without much trouble. Yet it sometimes 
happens that men who have ultimately come out as high 
as second or third in the Classical Tripos, or among the 
first eight Wranglers in the Mathematical, and who, 
therefore, it is reasonable to suppose, might have stood 
a good chance for Fellowships, miss their Scholarships 
from some accident, perhaps a feeling of security. This 
has even befallen men who afterwards took good double 
degrees — Senior Optimes in Mathematics, and First 
Class Men in Classics. It is not, therefore, prudent in 



2-10 Five Years in an English University. 

any man to take his Scholarship for granted, and the 
best naen of the Third Year are generally the most ner- 
vous from the recollection of their disappointment the 
year before. 

Next to these come another class whose final expec- 
tations are less lofty. They may be decent Wranglers, 
or high Second Class men, or Double Seconds ; that is 
the limit of their University views, and the Scholarship 
the limit of their college ones. If they stay up at all as 
Bachelors, it will be only to enjoy the full benefit of 
their income from the Scholarship, and for greater con- 
venience in taking pupils : or to attend Divinity Lec- 
tures. Others, again, are Classical men not yet decided 
whether they will go out in Honors, being doubtful if 
their probable place on the Classical Tripos can warrant 
the exertion and drudgery of getting through in Mathe- 
matics, and their success or failure in this examination 
will go far towards determining them. And yet others, 
Classical men also, are not anxious to go out in Honors 
at all, but would like to get a Scholarship as a sort of 
compensation to their friends and themselves, and a 
handsome way of retiring from the other contest with 
flying colors. 

We had a large opening this year — seventeen vacan- 
cies. To counterbalance this advantage, the lower year 
was a very strong one ; it contained a Mathematician of 
great pace and endurance, who was afterwards Senior 
Wrangler, and several capital Classics. Hallam was 
one of these, and so was the future Senior Medalist, 
who was of a family of several brothers that all wrote 
Greek Iambics by instinct. Our year was weak enough. 
After taking out the five men who gained their Schol- 
arships at the first trial, we had only one very good 
Mathematician left, and no very good Classic. The one 



Five Years in an English Zfniversity. 2 il 

in most repute was a son of the late Sir R. Peel, now 
M.P. for Leominster, and his father's ^o^^Vica^ successor. 
All these little personal matters, and many more, were 
as thoroughly canvassed as the history, merits, and 
chances of horses before a race, or office-seekers before 
an election. 

Finally arrived the Wednesday. The Hall was opened 
at nine, and seventy or eighty men rushed in to scrib- 
ble. Our first paper was Greek translation, and, to my 
surprise and joy, contained a long bit of Plato and a 
hard bit of Theocritus — authors not usually set in the 
Scholarship, and therefore likely not only utterly to con- 
found the Mathematical men, but to trouble some of 
the Classical ones, particularly of the Second year. The 
extra length of the paper, there being five selections in- 
stead of the usual four, was also of considerable benefit 
to me, for my pace, though not very good, was such as 
to leave a comfortable margin in four hours, and some 
of the others might be crowded by the additional ex- 
tract. But in spite of these advantages, a morbid feel- 
ing of disgust came over me soon after I sat down, and 
I was on the point of throwing up my papers and walk- 
ing off. Luckily I thought better of it, and on grad- 
ually reflecting how favorable to me this first morning s 
examination was, I felt a fresh stimulus, and worked 
diligently the whole four hours, taking care not to throw 
away any chance by going out before the time, as I had 
done the previous year. 

The bit of Plato set us was from the Tenth Book of 
the Laws. An American Professor's edition of this 
Book contains by his own confession two mistakes of 
construction in the notes to this very passage. I trans- 
lated the whole extract, which I had never seen before 
(nor had any of us, for the Laws is seldom read even 
11 



242 Five Years in an English University. 

by Bachelors, on account of its many corruptions and 
the want of proper editors), correctly throughout, and 
as some of the Junior Sophs were marked higher than 
myself upon it, they must have done so too. I mention 
this because it illustrates what will be more fully treated 
of hereafter, the difference between the English and 
American way of learning things. No doubt the Pro- 
fessor in question had read three times as much Plato as 
any of us three or four men who were best on this ex- 
tract ; perhaps it might be said, that in a rough and im- 
perfect way he had more general knowledge of the Pla- 
tonic j)hilosophy ; but it is long odds that any of us 
would have translated an ordinary selection from Plato 
— one where knowledge of language as well as matter 
came into play — much more correctly than he could. 

The examination lasts but three days and a half, the 
number of papers being seven, two translation, two Lat- 
in composition, two Mathematics, and one general ques- 
tions in Classical history and philology, etc., — a paper 
which of late years had become somewhat unjustly 
slighted — we were therefore through our toils by Sat- 
urday noon. I had done quite as much Mathematics as 
I expected, but my performances on the Latin verse pa- 
per were very shady. 

The candidates were now left to a week of suspense. 
This week I filled up with writing, not for, but rather 
at or against the University Latin Essay, for which as a 
sort of twice Third year man, I had a right to compete 
a second time. It has been mentione 1 that there pre- 
vailed in the University at this time a feeling of the most 
awful bigotry, combining all the worst parts of Young 
England Puseyism and old " high and dry " Toryism. 
This feeling was not confined to the Undergraduates, 
but was aided and abetted by many of those in author- 



Five T'cars in an English University. 243 

ity. One of its manifestations was a continual attempt 
at reviving all manner of long-buried absurdities and 
obsolete rules. Many of the University Statutes having 
been enacted when the Uudergradutes were boys of 
fourteen, had been tacitly thrown overboard with the 
new order of things. Some of them it was attempted 
to revivify — always such as admitted arriere ^9e;As^e. 
Thus there was a regulation, ' ne ad divevsas ecclesias 
disoijyiili vagentw ' or something to that effect — a very 
proper one to prevent boys from running about to differ- 
ent places of worship, and escajsing the observation of 
their tutors. But this was now sought to be restored 
with an aim at some of the Parish Churches, particular- 
ly that of Trinity (not to be confounded with Trinity 
College Chapel), Simeon's Parish Church, where Sime- 
on's successor and biographer Carus, the Senior Dean 
of Trinity College, always had a number of Undergi-ad- 
uates among his congregation. And it was maintained 
that these did wrong in attending any other place of 
worship than the University Church, Great St. Mary's. 
A sensible man on the other side quoted another clause 
of the Statutes by which Undergraduates are forbidden 
to walk in the town, unless accompanied by an M. A., 
and showed conclusively that the two regulations Avere 
called forth by the like state of things and stood on the 
same footing. It was doubtless with reference to this 
contest that the subject now given for the Undergradu- 
ates' Latin Essay was " Qua3nam heneficia a legihus prm- 
scriptis diligenter observatis Academice alumni percijyi- 
ant f " 

After four pages of grave introduction, I took a ri- 
diculous view of the whole question, and not content 
with showing up the purists in construction of the Stat- 
utes, took the opportunity of letting off a little of mydis- 



244 Five Tears in an English Jlniversity. 

like for Mathematics. So far as any chance of the prize was 
concerned, it was a waste of time, unless the Vice-Chan- 
cellor or his deputy had been liberal to excess ; but it 
took just a week to compose, and filled up the period 
before the result of the Examination was declared, after 
which I was to recommence reading Classics with another 
new coach — my Pembroke friend, who, having just gone 
out with all the Honors, was to experiment on me for 
his first pupil. 

The decisive morning arrived. I had invited seven 
or eight fiiends to breakfast — to rejoice or condole with 
me as the case might be — at ten, the usual hour of a 
breakfast party, and after leaving morning chapel at sev- 
en, went pacing about the grounds in a great state of 
fidget, supported by my amateur Mathematical coach, 
and trying to fortify myself with a report I had heard 
two or three days before from a friend of one of the ex- 
aminers, that my translation pajDers were ahead of the 
rest of the year. The examiners (the Master and the 
eight Senior Fellows, one or two of whom usually do 
their work by deputy) meet after chapel to compare re- 
sults and elect the Scholars. About nine, A. M., the 
new scholars are announced from the chapel gates. On 
this occasion it is not etiquette for the candidates them- 
selves to be in waiting — it looks too " bumptious ;" but 
their personal friends are sure to be on hand, together 
with an humbler set concerned — the gyps, coal-men, boot- 
blacks, and other College servants — who take great in- 
terest in the success of their masters, and bet on them 
to the amount of five shillings and less. This time the 
conclave was prolonged rather later than usual ; there 
was evidently a difficulty in deciding between some of 
the candidates. It usually happens that about two-thirds 
are elected unanimously, while for the remaining vacan- 



Five Years in an English University. 245 

cies tliere are many of nearly equal pretensions, among 
whom it is not easy to decide. Just before nine, my 
coach went oif to chapel to wait for the announcement 
of the result ; and I returned to my rooms to superin- 
tend breakfast arrangements. My friend of the sherry- 
cobblers, in a greater state of excitement than one would 
have deemed a man of his years capable of, popped in 
iipon me while thus engaged. We began to sing, or 
make a noise dimly approximating to singing, to conceal 
our feelings. A long, very long fifteen or twenty min- 
utes elapsed, and then my gyp, first to bring the tidings, 
rushed in at full trot to assure me that it was all right ; 
and seeing my convivial friend, took occasion to con- 
gratulate him also on his election. Then appeared the 
special messenger, who had been delayed a few moments 
by taking down the names of the new Scholars. Soon 
after, our Plato lecturer, my College tutor, stalked in 
direct from the scene of action (he had been one of the 
examiners) in his full academicals, like Tragedy in gor- 
gous pall, to tender me his congratulations in a majestic 
and Don-like manner ; and after him Professor Sedg- 
wick. By this time, too, the breakfasters had begun to 
assemble, and we made a merry party, three or four of 
us being among the new Scholars. Chicken salads and 
cutlets vanished right and left. The quondam Metho- 
dist parson was in glorious condition, and before we 
broke i;p arranged a supper for that evening. When we 
strolled out into the grounds, more than one group was 
lounging about and discussing the result of the examin- 
ation. As generally happens, the best men in the lower 
year had beaten ours in Classics and Mathematics. As 
also generally happens, some Senior Sophs, considered 
quite safe, were thrown out. Peel was one of these, 
and his failure strikingly proved the fairness with which 



246 Five Years in an English University. 

these examinations are conducted ; for, had the electors 
been disposed to favor his name, they might have done 
so without suspicion, as he was considered a good schol- 
ar, and proved himself such in the end. 

That night we reproduced the "jolly revel " of The- 
ocritus in a free practical translation. Our host, elated 
by a double triumph — for the College Declamations 
were just declared, and he had gained one of the Latin 
ones — had exhausted one of his Amphitryonic resources 
to do justice to the party and the occasion. Turkey- 
legs devilled in wine, curried oysters, lobster au gratin 
(the Trinity cook used to call it lobster grating^ just as 
he had converted poulet grille into pulled and grilled 
fowl)^ and other appetizing condiments, graced the board, 
and that rare luxury in England, good Madeii-a, flowed 
abundantly. We were just enough to make two whist 
tables, and it must have been pretty well into the 
morning when we separated. 

Indeed, my life for the next fortnight was somewhat 
sensual and luxurious. I lived well, played billiards 
frequently in the day time, and whist occasionally at 
night, and did not work much for my coach. I got up 
various aesthetic little dinner parties for my friends, both 
Fellows and Undergraduates, to celebrate my success. 
Our cook was a very good one, and could arrange al- 
most any French plat in very resiDectable style, and 
there were some real English dishes which he achieved 
to perfection : I remember tench stewed in claret, that 
would console a fi-equenter of the Cafe Anglais for the 
loss of his turhot creme gratin. I had gained such a 
reputation for dinner-giving, that men going to " hang 
out " sometimes asked me to compose bills of fare for 
them. I boasted a good wine-merchant, not a Cam- 
bridge one, of course. Some of the duties of my new 



Five Years in an English University. 247 

position actually favored this sybaritism. One of our 
privileges as Scholars was a separate table in Hall. The 
meat and vegetables were supplied gratis; over the 
sizings, for which we paid, we had full control; and 

F and myself used to be studious in puddings and 

sauces (receipts for which he had picked up in Germany 
wdiile on a reading-party) for the benefit of the whole 
table. 

Yet let it not be supposed that this was all mere 
animal enjoyment. Some of the most intellectual con- 
versation I ever listened to, or participated in, has ac- 
companied and succeeded the claret at these little din- 
ners. Like Homer's heroes who 

TrSaiog Kal idTjTvog ef ipov ^vto, 

as a preparation for any important discussion, the clev- 
erest and most brilliant men among my Cambridge 
friends were at the acme of their conversational power 
after a well-arranged banquet ; and not the least re- 
nowned for their care of the good things they took in 
and the good things they uttered, were the apostolic 
coterie. I have some of these after-dinner groups in 
my mind's eye now — Travis, a sort of small Borrow all 
but the belligerency, knowing all manner of out-of-the- 
Avay languages and out-of-the-Avay places, ready to talk 
about any subject, all things by turns, and nothing long; 
now making a pun, now telling a gypsy story, now join- 
ing in a grave critical and now in a graver theological 
discussion, always very brilliant and plausible, but not 
always very logical ; the tall, grave statuesque Plato 
lecturer, half admiring, half ashamed of his aioostolic 
confrere, dropping his magisterial decisions in polished 

sarcasms ; E , the poetic-looking Senior Wi-angler 

(who was an exquisite in his dinner costume, and always 



248 Five Years in an English University. 

got himself up as carefully for a bachelor party as if he 
were to meet a roomful of ladies), conspicuous in his 
crimson waistcoat, speckled stockings, and very sym- 
metrical white tie, occupying the most comfortable 
chair in the room, seeing through everything and every- 
body with his searching eyes, and occasionally with two 
or three of his close sentences tumbling down all that 
Travis had been saying for the last half hour ; Henry 
Hallam, maintaining a modest silence as the youngest 
man present, but looking so eloquent that every one 
wanted him to talk, till at last he woxdd talk wonder- 
fully ; the Pembroke man, also backward to speak be- 
fore his elders (he had the rare merit of being either a 
talker or a listener, as circumstances demanded), but, 
when he did speak, putting in keen and rapid remai'ks 
that told like knock-down blows ; now and then a Rugby 
man, some pet pupil of Arnold's, a youth earnest in his 
convictions, innocent without folly, learned without con- 
ceit, uttering sentiments that from their simplicity might 
nave come from a child, but which a clever man would 
find it hard to gainsay or controvert. How those men 
would converse ! What fertility of illustration ! what 
discriminating subtlety ! what original application of 
laboriously accumulated learning ! They made gospel 
of Walter Mapes' assertion — 

" Poculis accenditur animi lucerna, 
Cor imbutum nectare volat ad superna." 

To recur to such men and such scenes with a fully ap- 
preciating recollection, one must have had some winters' 
experience of a different sort of society, where the fri- 
volities of fashion and the malicious details of personal 
scandal form the staples of conversation ; where mind is 
frittered away in gossip or prostituted in slander, and 



Five Years in an English TInicersity. 249 

the best appliances of the table only draw forth coarse- 
ness instead of wit; where sincerity is deemed a cloak 
for shahbiness, and any manifestation of the natural af- 
fections a mark of vulgarity — till at last, talking to a 
horse-jockey about fast trotters becomes a decided re- 
lief and a comparatively noble occupation. 

All this time I was nominally going on with my 
new tutor, though not fairly settled at work for the first 
fortnfght. I went over the Theatetus, that most diffi- 
cult dialogue of Plato, very slowly and carefully with 
him ; but my chief business was to prosecute Composi- 
tion, in which I was very much behindhand, a three- 
month's cessation from any practice of the kind in Greek 
having left me in a most forlorn state as to Iambics, and 
not very well olf for prose. In the evenings I read 
some of the harder Orations of Cicero, to get up Roman 
law. Important as this short term was, since I should 
soon be obliged to devote my best energies entirely to 
Mathematics, I was tempted to give three or four hours 
a week to playing coach myself, and superintending the 
Greek Testament of a friend whose ambition was con- 
fined to passing among the -koTOmI^ and who was anxious 
to read with an acquaintance in preference to a stranger. 
I ahvays rather liked this sort of work in moderation, 
and could even now amuse myself any day after dinner 
with coaching a pupil, if he were not a very stupid one; 
and the habit of teaching, when it does not engross too 
much of a man's time, is of direct benefit to himself by 
helping him to learn better. There was the additional 
advantage that I made enough to pay my own coach. 

I had some curiosity to see how this tutor of mine, 

so young as he was — about two years my junior, and 

fresh from a team himself — would get on at first, and 

whether his known cleverness would help him or be in 

11* 



250 Five Years in an English University. 

his way. The result removed all doubts and surj)assed 
my most sangume expectations. I could feel that I was 
being admirably jockeyed. He had the greatest dexter- 
ity in impressing his knowledge upon others, made ex- 
planations that came to the point at once and could not 
be misunderstood, corrected mistakes in a way that one 
was not ajDt to forget, supplied you with endless variety 
of happy expressions for Composition and dodges in 
translation — in short I was conscious of making progress 
with him every day, and only regretted that I could not 
continue with him through the Long. 

During this term I attended another course of Aris- 
totle lectures — they were on the Rhetoric this year — • 
but not with any express view to the May examination, 
which I had no intention of going in to, if it could be 
helped, and which I eventually escaped by an mgrotat 
from my physician. He might be said to have done his 
best towards putting me in a fit state for one, as not 
long before he had kej)t me six hours at table, on the 
occasion of a dinner which he gave to four or five of the 
new scholars as an appendix to and return for some of 
my " hangings out." The ostensible excuse for the cer- 
tificate was a slight cold which I caught a few days pre- 
vious to the examination, while showing two compatri- 
ots — a literary and a diplomatic lion — the curiosities of 
the place. It was a raw morning, and by way of doing 
the precise in costume I jDut on a white tie, without 
which the academic dress is not strictly complete. 
Hence my mgrotafs worth of cold. 



Five Years in an English University. 251 



THE READING PARTY. 

Lucus a non lucendo. 
" A pleasant land of drowsyhead it was." — Thomson, 

AFTER reading as well as I could by myself Pla- 
to's ^opldsta^ which comes in natural order after 
the Theatetus^ and paying a brief visit to London, I 
started sometime about the end of June to join a read- 
ing-party in Brittany. 

A too easy temper, or enmd, or mere wantonness, 
often makes men take a step with the perfect conscious- 
ness that they are doing a very foolish thing. It is no- 
torious matter of tradition and experience that not one 
in a hundred of those who go on reading-parties makes 
a profitable use of his time — nay, that scapegraces Avho 
wish to " do their governors " and delude them into the 
belief that they are " reading " while doing any thing 
but read, adopt this very plan as the most efficient — 
nevertheless it happens every year that some hard-work- 
ing and well-disposed youths wander off in these parties. 
Perhaps the unfortunate has stayed two whole Longs at 
Cambridge already, and finds the prosjDect of a third 
summer there too dreary, or he thinks a change of air 
may do him good before the struggle of the last term, 
or some nice Bachelor friend of his is making up a nice 
party and wants to bring him into it ; so, though he 
knows that the majority of men who join in such excur- 
sions do very little reading, he hoj^es to be one of the 
minority who form the excej^tions. For it is uot'imjios- 
sible to read on a reading-party ; there is only a great 



252 Five Years in an EnglisJi University. 

chance against yonr being able to do so. As a very 
general rule, a' man works best in his accustomed place 
of business, where he has not only his ordinary appli- 
ances and helps, but his familiar associations about him. 
The time lost in settling down and making one's self 
comfortable and ready for work in a new place is not in- 
considerable, and is all clear loss. Moreover the very 
idea of a reading-party involves a combination of two 
things incompatible — amusement and relaxation beyond 
the proper and necessary quantity of daily exercise 
and hard work at books. Any trip, excursion, or 
sojourn away from home (the University is the Un- 
dergraduate's home while he belongs to it) whether for 
the purpose of benefiting the health, refreshing the 
mind, or acquiring new ideas from contact with diifereut 
people and scenes, presupposes as a necessaiy condition 
to its full enjoyment and profit the liberty of the dolce 
far 7iiente. You must be able to ramble in woods, or 
ride along beaches, or climb hills, or lionize churches, or 
follow up casual acquaintances, or even lie on your back 
dreamily watching clouds sailing over head and ships 
gliding by on rivers, without being pulled up every half- 
hour by the thought of that chapter of Conic Sections 
to be read before dinner, or the melancholy reflection 
that this evening you have to undulate.* 

Nevertheless men go on reading-parties in despite of 
this better judgment, and so did I on this occasion, 
though what made it an additional imprudence on my 
part was, that it being my business now to get through 
the Mathematical Tripos with the least expense of time 
and trouble, so as to save as much as possible of 

* This expression has no reference to unsteadiness of after-din- 
ner movement, but merely to the Undulatory Theory of Light. 



Five Years in cm English University. 253 

my energies for the Classical, I required A'ery careful 
handling by an experienced coach, whereas the head and 
tutor of our party was a Bachelor of the present year, 
a high Wrangler himself, but with no practice as yet in 
the art of communicating information to others. Ilea<l- 
ing parties do not confine themselves to England or the 
Island of Great Britain. Sometimes they have been 
known to go as far as Dresden. We had decided to fix 
ourselves at some small town in France, and finally 
pitched upon Dinan in Brittany. Sometimes a party is 
of considerable size ; when a crack tutor goes on one, 
which is not often, he takes his whole team with him, 
and not unfrequently a Classical and Mathematical Bach- 
elor join their pupils. We were but a small lot ; tutor 
and all only numbering five. A day was fixed for meet- 
ing at Dinan, the shortest route to which place Avas by 
Southampton, but having a desire to visit the picturesque 
old town of Rouen, I crossed at Folkstone, and traversed 
the wliole width of Normandy and Brittany. The pas- 
sage through the latter province is not one of my most 
enchanting reminiscenses of travel — the Diligences going 
five miles an hour exclusive of stoppages, and the country 
as uninteresting as if it had been made by one of " na- 
ture's journeymen." With delusive hopes of enjoying 
the scenery I had taken my place en hanquette^ and trav- 
elled like one of the very people, breakfasting in cellars 
with the conductor on three sous' worth of cafe au lait, 
or rather lait au cafe ^' gossipping with an English pilot 
who had somehow got out of his element thus far into 
the bowels of the land, but who spoke the language bet- 
ter than many of his more refined countrymen ; falling 
asleep at night on the rough seats of the imperial, and 
putting my feet into the hats of ruflfianly commis-voya- 
geurs, who on awaking poured upon me a profusion of 



254 Five Years in an English University. 

oaths, which I received with a composure that imraedi- 
ately procured me the reputation of being an English- 
man, fortunately for me perhaps, as their respect for 
le hoxe restrained them from proceeding beyond verbal 
hostilities. But with all this I was obliged to fall back 
on a pocket Hoiner before reaching Dinan. For the 
first time I began to read the Odyssey through from the 
beginning. It had for me all the interest of an old Ro- 
mance, and forcibly recalled the boyish ardor with which 
I originally perused Robinson Crusoe. It may be sup- 
posed that I did not get it up very accurately, having 
neither Buttmann's Lexilogus^ nor Liddell and Scott's 
Lexicon at hand. All the doubtful words and passages 
I met with now, and during the succeeding month in 
Jersey, I marked for future reference and looked them 
out in a heap on my return to Cambridge — a whole- 
sale process productive of anything but accurate knowl- 
edge, as I found to my cost in the Tripos. But of this 
I thought little at the time. The book had a perfect 
charm for me, and when we arrived at Dinan I woke up 
from it and thought of the coming Mathematics with a 
shudder. 

But at Dinan there was no more trace of our party 
than if the earth had swallowed them up. As the ho- 
tels of the town were not numerous, and the whole 
place easily run over, I could soon satisfy myself of this 
without api^lying to that ordinary substitute for Provi- 
dence in a Continental town, the Police. However, I 
waited for two or three days, the environs being rather 
pretty, and then, in a great puzzle, proceeded to St. Ma- 
lo (which dirty little town, by the way, contains, or at 
least did contain then, one of the best hotels in Europe), 
and there took boat for Southampton. There was an 
hour's landing at Jersey. I went on shore with an offi- 



Five Y'ears in an English University. 255 

cer; we played two games at billiards, had returned ou 
board, and the boat was just going to start, when my 
coach suddenly laid hands on me, and hurriedly stated 
— there was no time for a long explanation — ^how they 
had found it so dirty at St. Malo that they never went 
on to Dinan at all, and Jersey being a very nice place, 
they had determined to stay there. Jersey was just the 
place where I did not want to stay, having heard much 
of its abundant opportunities for idleness. But the 
whole thing passed in a moment, and before I could well 
open my mouth, I found myself and luggage on shore. 
In going ten steps we met a veiy pretty woman, soon 
another, then I saw a third in a shop; and one reason 
for staying at Jersey which had not been assigned flashed 
upon me. 

The little island is emphatically a place for female 
beauty ; I doubt if any spot on earth can claim a supe- 
riority to it in this respect. Nor is it deficient in other 
comforts and embellishments of life. Being very im- 
portant to England in case of war with France, it is se- 
dulously petted. Its inhabitants then enjoyed the bene- 
fits of free trade and jDrotection together, actually selling 
the corn which they raised at protection prices in Eng- 
land, and importing corn for their own consumption, 
duty free, from the Continent. French wines, and gloves, 
and silks, they have without duty at French prices. 
The temperature of the island is very pleasant and 
equable all the year round ; its scenery is necessarily on 
a small scale — the longest diameter of Jersey being but 
twelve miles — but it is exceedingly pretty. There are 
good saddle-horses to be hired, a phenomenon existing 
in few parts of the world. In short, it is a particularly 
nice little spot for a man of leisure to enjoy himself in, 
and one of the very worst for a man professing to study 



256 Five Years in an English University, 

to pursue his studies in. The principal occupation of 
the inhabitants appears to be playing billiards, a jDractice 
which they are not backward to inculcate on strangers. 
The prettiness of the scenery and cheapness of the ex- 
cellent hacks tempts one to be in the saddle half the 
day ; the balmy and enervating air invites to early re- 
pose. It was a lucky thing for me that, before the end 
of a month, I quarreled with my coach, which gave me 
a good excuse for leaving the party and the island; 
otherwise I should have come out a featherless biped 
indeed from the Decree Examination. 



Five Years in an EiujJish University. 257 



SAWDUST PUDDIJfG WITH BALLAD SAUCE. 

Ho'XvaTovov 6e K7iri66v' apfid^uv dfia 
Ma^/jftar' fjv yap ^v/j./xeTpog Tvadfif-iaciv. 

Ma^t/fiaroyovia. 

ON returning to Cambridge, near the end of July, I 
Avas fortunate enough to find a place in the team 
of a capital tutor, a Small- College man who had but six 
pupils, all going ovit this time, and five of them " low 
men." My sojourn at Jersey had only brought me 
through Algebra once more, and now, beginning with 
Plane Trigonometry, I resolutely encountered that 
nightmare of most classical men, the jDreparation for 
the Mathematical Tripos. 

When the Classical Tripos was instituted (which was 
so lately as 1824), it was thought fit to imj^ose as a con- 
dition on the candidates for it that they should previ- 
ously " take Mathematical Honors," a phrase somewhat 
facetiously applied in their case, as it meant for most of 
them obtaining a place among the Jimior Optinies, or 
lowest class. The idea of this restriction was probably 
suggested by the previously existing one in reference to 
the Chancellor's Medals, the candidates for which were 
required to be Senior Oiytimes. Thus the Mathematical 
Tripos became, in fact, at the same time a test of merit 
for the Mathematicians and a pass examination for the 
Classical men, since none of the latter cared anything 
about being one place or twenty places higher or lower 
among the Junior Optim(^s ; indeed, being a Senior Op- 



258 Five Years in an English University. 

tim6 or not generally made very little difference to a 
Classic, unless he were a candidate for one of the Med- 
als, it being so small a matter to him compared to his 
place in the other Tripos. Bearing in view the real 
difficulty which a majority of the Classical men had in 
getting up their Mathematics, as well as the uncongenial 
nature of the study, it is evident that the Mathematical 
Tripos could only be made useful as a pass examination 
by keeping the standard of a Junior Optim6 very low 
in comparison with what might be expected from men 
pretending to Mathematical Honors^ and claiming to 
show a proficiency in Mathematics. The " low " ques- 
tions * were chiefly confined to the first day's papers, 
but there was enough of them for a man knowing his 
low subjects only, but those perfectly, to become a Se- 
nior Oj:)., and not one of the last ones either. And this 
did sometimes happen by good fortune to an aspirant 
for Classical Honors, who had read only, as he supposed, 
Mathematics enough to get through. But as from the 
longest of these subjects not more than six or seven 
questions were set, an unfortunate who had spent some 
time on one of them might nevertheless very possibly 
fail to answer a single question proposed in it. If a man 
is " plucked," that is, does not get marks enough to pass, 
his chance of a Fellowship is done for, even at Trinity, 
for Trinity Scholars when plucked lose their Scholar- 
ships. Some ten or fifteen men just on the line, not 

* The "low subjects," as got up to pass men among tlie Junior 
Optimes, comprise — Euclid, first four books, sixtb, and eleventh; 
Algebra, including Logarithms ; Plane Trigonometry, Conic Sec- 
tions, first three Sections of Neioton, Statics, Dynamics, Hydrostat- 
ics, and Optics, so far as these can be carried without the Differen- 
tial ; frequently Spherical Trigonometry, and more rarely the ru- 
diments of Astronomy, 



Five Years in mi English University. 259 

bad enough to be plucked or good enough to be placed, 
are put into the " gulf," as it is popularly called (the 
Examiners' phrase is "Degrees allowed"), and have 
their degrees given them, but are not printed in the 
Calendar, nor were they at this time allowed to try for 
the Classical Tripos. Being gulfed was therefore about 
as bad for a Small-Colleger as being plucked^ since it 
equally destroyed his chance of a Fellowship, but a 
gulfed Scholar of Trinity did not lose his Scholarship. 

The requirement of Mathematical Honors from Clas- 
sical men was the great question of University Politics, 
so to speak, at this time. The sufferers' complaint 
may be briefly stated as follows : — 

" This restriction is unjust to us and partial to the 
Mathematicians, Avho are under no corresponding obli- 
gation. It is true that they have to pass their Little- 
Go, but the acknowledged main difficulty in that is the 
Paley^ which is as much a difficulty for us as for them. 
The Classical part of that examination is fixed and de- 
fined in all its details long beforehand ; it is not more 
than a man with ordinary school-boy knowledge can get 
up in six weeks ; a failure in it is not irremediable, for 
should a man be plucked (which very seldom happens) 
at the first Previous Examination, he can pass in the 
October one without endangering his ultimate pros- 
pects ; lastly, it comes in the middle of his University 
career, and leaves him his last and most important 
twenty months clear to devote to his favorite studies. 
Whereas the pressure of the Mathematical Examination 
comes upon us just at the time which we most want for 
our Classics. It is very general in its range of subjects, 
and very limited in the number of questions from each 
subject, so that, to make sure of passing, we are obliged 
to get up twice or thi-ee times the amount that would 



2G0 Five Tears in an English University. 

be necessary if the range of questions were more accu- 
rately defined beforehand, or the low pajaers were long- 
er. If of two men equal in classical talent and knowl- 
edge one has a better mathematical capacity than the 
other, so that he can get up the requisite quantity in 
four months, while it takes his competitor eight, he 
gains four months advantage over him in time to polish 
up his Classics, so that an irrelevant and unfair element 
is introduced into the test of classical merit. If any 
study has a prescriptive right to a privilege or bounty, 
it is ours, for we continue to study after entering the 
University, while many of the Mathematicians only begin 
there. A man may be a Wrangler the commencement 
of whose Mathematical knowledge was contempora- 
neous with his admission. But no one was ever placed 
in any class of the Tripos who came up to the Univer- 
sity knowing only the elements of Greek grammar. 
The Classical man, if plucked, loses, so far as the tangi- 
ble pecuniary recompense is concerned, the work of ten 
years or more ; the Mathematician is not obliged to put 
in peril the result of four years' labor. Nor is it a small 
grievance, though sinking into insignificance alongside 
some others, that we are obliged to stand up to he 
Jcnoched doion — are published as " Wooden Spoon," per- 
haps, or a few places above it, in an examination which 
for us is merely a pass, wdiiile on its face it professes to 
be only a test of merit, and is so for the majority of those 
in it. 

" However, we should not complain of these evils 
did the result of the corajDulsory study afl:brd any com- 
pensation for them. But so far from our being able to 
perceive any mental benefit arising from the Mathemat- 
ical course, whatcA^er efiect we are conscious of is abso- 
lutely injurious. We are puzzled and worried over in- 



Five Years iyi an English University. 261 

tricate propositions, the truth of Avhich we readily ad- 
mit, but in which we can see no beauty and take no in- 
terest. The mhid refuses to swallow the loathsome 
dose forced upon the memory. We forget Classics 
without learning any Mathematics. What we do get 
up for the examination we cannot be jiroperly said to 
knoio — it is only held in solution, and when Ave have 
passed the ordeal for which it was destined, is precipita- 
ted immediately. Our very first object is to turn it out 
of our minds as soon as possible, that they may recover 
their Classical tone." 

To this the Mathematical Dons would reply — so far 
as they condescended to express themselves verbally or 
in writing, for many of them, being in possession, were 
content therewith, and deigned not to give reasons — 
' The object of a University is not to reward distin- 
guished talent in any one particular branch, but to give 
a thorough and complete education to the mental facul- 
ties. The Mathematics are necessary to improve and 
develope the reason, as the Classics are to improve and 
develope the imagination. If the Mathematical experi- 
ence of many begins after their entering the University, 
so much the more reason is it why we should make up 
for the neglect of the Public Schools, which have been 
and still are notoriously deficient in this respect. And 
it is the circumstance of having to begin here with the 
rudiments of Mathematical science that makes the sub- 
ject so distasteful to Classical men, compared with the 
languages of which they have long ago passed the rudi- 
mentary diflSculties. If they would go back in recollec- 
tion to their early school days, they would find them- 
selves suffering as much then from grammars and non- 
sense verses, as now from roots and cosines. The small 
quantity of Mathematics required to pass a man among 



262 Five Years in an JEnglish University. 

the Junior Optim6s need not at the most liberal allow- 
ance require for its preparation more than nine months 
of the thirty-nine which complete his course for the B. A. 
degree. If any instances of failure after honest applica- 
tion occur, these are exceptional cases, owing to nervous- 
ness, bad luck, or other causes, exactly such as some- 
times thi'ow a candidate for one of the Medals down 
into the Second Class of the Tripos, and which cannot 
be guarded against in any system. Moreover, there is 
a double moral advantage arising from the compulsory 
study of Mathematics. In the first place, it checks an 
arrogant tendency on the part of Classical men to con- 
sider their knowledge as the knowledge of all others 
and the one test of ability and cleverness, by exhibiting 
their deficiency in an equally extensive and important 
intellectual department. In the second place, having to 
overcome a difficulty and discharge a disagreeable task 
by steady application, gives a lesson of patience and con- 
fidence very serviceable in after life." 

Such, I fancy, would be admitted by those members 
of the Senate upholding the restriction to be a pretty 
fair summary of their arguments in favor of it. The 
dispute is a nice one to decide, for it is not easy to find 
a judge at once competent and impartial. A man with 
a natural talent for Mathematics cannot easily so far put 
himself into the j)lace of one naturally averse to and in- 
competent in them, as to appreciate the effects of their 
compulsory study upon the latter's mind. On the other 
hand, a Classical man has no right to decide against the 
use of Mathematics to himself until he has given them 
a full and fair trial. This I can certainly claim to have 
done. Having been initiated into Euclid and Algebra 
at school ; having somehow gone through the Mathe- 
matical Course at Yale College without beino: able to 



Five Y'ears in an English University. 263 

perceive that I derived the slightest possible good from 
it; having faithfully attacked Algebra again from the 
very beginning, during the term previous to my first 
May at Trinity, and made an almost total failure ; hav- 
ing renewed the attack three times subsequently, the 
last for six months together, and with so much success 
that I accomplished my object of getting through in 
Honors — I may say with justice that I have tried the 
experiment, and must say with truth that, so far as any 
intellectual discipline or improvement is concerned, a 
very large portion of the time so spent — certainly al- 
most all of that spent in Analysis — was clear waste. 
But as the case of an individual, however well investi- 
gated in itself, may be anomalous and not available for 
general rules, let us examine carefully the positions of 
those who advocate the compulsory study of Mathe- 
matics to the end of the Undergraduates' career, and 
also the effect of the two courses of study — the Classic- 
al and the Mathematical — in developing the different 
faculties. 

The fundamental assertion that Mathematics devel- 
ope the reasoning powers, as Classics do the imaginative, 
(or, as it is sometimes expressed, that Classics make men 
elegant and Mathematics make them accurate) is one of 
those stereotyped sayings which a great many people 
take on trust, but which will not stand the scrutiny of a 
vigorous inspection. In fact, it does not characterize 
either branch correctly. It may well be doubted wheth- 
er any direct study can properly be said to improve the 
imaginative faculties — to increase the original stock of 
them possessed by any individual, or implant them where 
they do not already exist. If there is any such study, it cer- 
tainly is not that of the Classics, which leads to the crit- 
icism and imitation of others' models rather than the 



264 Five Years in an English University. 

creation of new ones. Taking imagination in the sense 
of invention or originality^ it enters much more into 
Mathematical than into Classical pursuits ; and if this 
invention, as exhibited in the working of problems, etc., 
could be imparted by study and practice to those natur- 
ally destitute of it, then we might say that Mathematics, 
and not Classics, improved the imagination. That Clas- 
sical studies correct the imagination, is another propo- 
sition, and I believe a very true one ; they give taste and 
style; their office is eminently gesthetic. If asked what 
are their effects and benefits, I should name this as the 
first ; and for the second I should assign what is gener- 
ally attributed to Mathematics — accuracy and discrimin- 
ation in reasoning. That Mathematical propositions are 
in most cases perfect specimens of ideal demonstration 
and pure reasoning, is rather against than for them in 
this respect. There are, as a general rule, no shades of 
reasoning in Mathematics : a demonstration is either 
right or it is wrong. Sometimes, indeed, it may be ar- 
rived at in several diififerent ways ; but these are distinct 
processes, not modifications of the same one. The two 
most general forms of reasoning which we need and en- 
coimter in the practice of life, discrimination between 
quasi-synonyras and judgment from probabilities, are 
unprovided for by Mathematical training. The niceties 
and difficulties of Classical, particularly Greek syntax, 
are much better calculated to teach practical accuracy. 
What, then, are the qualities of the mind most nec- 
essary for, and most brought into play by Mathematical 
study ? I should answer (setting aside the inventive pow- 
er already mentioned, which, I think it will be generally 
conceded, is rather a pre-requisite for, than a develop- 
ment of Mathematical proficiency) method and concen- 
tration / and I believe it will usually be found that those 



Five Years in an English University. 265 

persons who ai'e deficient in ability to acquire Mathe- 
matics, are also deficient in method and concentration. 
For myself, I always find the want of an orderly and 
regular sequence of ideas one of my greatest troubles in 
treating of a subject — what thought to put first, and 
how to connect the difierent heads. So much so is this 
the case, that, when younger, I used generally to write 
an essay in fragments and piece them together as best I 
could ; and even now, whatever I write about, I am con- 
tinually obliged to leave out something pertaining to the 
subject, for want of being able to find an appropriate 
place for its inti'oduction. And the next great difficulty 
is a want of concentration, an inability to keep my at- 
tention fixed upon one subject at a time until I have 
done with it. Now, one of the essential characteristics 
of Mathematical demonstration is the regular sequence 
of steps following one another in order ; disturb this or- 
der, and the demonstration is not only vitiated but de- 
stroyed. Sometimes, indeed, where the solution is given 
beforehand, you may begin at both ends and work the 
equivalents till they meet, but even then the progress both 
ways is in regular and methodical order. Equally true 
is it — indeed it almost follows as a matter of course — 
that a Mathematical demonstration requires the concen- 
trated and undivided attention of the person who is en- 
gaged on it ; it is not like reading a passage in Classics, 
where, if you do not understand one line or sentence, 
you may pass it over for the time, go on to the next, and 
return again to the original difiiculty after having made 
some progress elsewhere. 

But now, it may well be asked, since method and 

concentration are two most desirable qualities to gain, if 

these are particularly brought into play in Mathematical 

operations, is not the study an exceedingly useful one ? 

12 



266 Five Years in an English University. 

The difficulties attendant on an answer to this question 
I am not disposed to imderrate ; that my answer will 
satisfy the reader I can hardly expect, as it does not in 
all particulars satisfy myself Firmly convinced as I am 
that all the Mathematics which I read after a certain 
point were a sheer waste of time, still I cannot explain 
so fully as I could wish why this was the case, and is the 
case with all men of similarly constituted minds. 

One thing is open and on the surface — the insupera- 
ble disgust to Mathematical study which a man of this 
class feels (and in this class I include not only those who 
like myself just scraped through, but a number of those 
who by dint of sheer cram or good luck succeed in be- 
coming Senior Optim6s). He cannot work himself up to 
an interest for the pursuit. When he succeeds in writ- 
ing out a long formula with perfect correctness, he does 
not feel the same satisfaction as when he has turned off 
a good copy of verses, or a neat translation, or an essay 
that pleases him. The only gratification present to his 
mind is the consolation of having shot so much rubbish. 
Nor can this nausea be altogether accounted for by mor- 
tified vanity and the discouragement caused by want of 
progress, for in many cases it absolutely increases with 
the progress made. I never felt so thoroughly sick of 
every thing like a Mathematical book as just before the 
" Great Go," when my knowledge of Mathematics was 
greater than it ever was before or has ever been since — 
if we can apply the term knoicledge to the quantity of 
Mathematics requisite to get a place among the Junior 
VL'^'ptim^s. But in truth such a man never has and never 
M'H have any Mathematical knowledge in the true sense. 
The amount of alien matter violently obtruded upon his 
mind never assimilates itself to his mental composition, 
is never unconsciously remembered, never becomes a 



Five Years in mi English TIniversity. 2G7 

part of his habitual associations. It is only held on to 
tempoi'arily by an incessant mental effort ; as soon as 
that effort is relaxed it departs, and there is no wish or 
impulse of the mind to retard its departure. lie loolis 
upon the Mathematical examinations as a sort of fight 
with the examiners, in which he is to get through or get 
a Senior Optirae as the case may be, with the least 
knowledge and trouble ; should he come out high among 
the Senior Ops, and beat a number of single men, he 
rather enjoys it as a joke upon the examination, a sort 
of irony of fate, and views it much as a billiard player 
would a racroc — a jiiece of luck but not at all a matter 
of pride. Cases are on record of Classical men who by 
a happy combination of labor and luck have become 
high Senior Optimes, consequently beating several can- 
didates for Wranglerships, and nine months after have 
taken in no Mathematics to the Trinity Fellowship ex- 
amination. And not only is the progress in this uncon- 
genial study, slow, disagreeable, and elusive, but, so far 
from its strengthening the mind of the scholar for more 
appropriate employments, it actually weakens and unfits 
it. Fagging at Mathematics not only fatigues, but hope- 
lessly muddles an unmathematical man, so that he is in 
no state for any mental exertion. It was the general 
complaint of men who had been working up Mathemat- 
ics for the Trinity Scholarship, or going through a long- 
er probation for the Senate House, that it took several 
days to recover the spring and tone of their minds when 
they set to work on Classics again. Indeed the infliction 
of a Mathematical course upon non-Mathematicians has 
always seemed to me like an attempt to implant in the 
mind new qualities, not to develope those which it al- 
ready possesses. No doubt a man who can acquire a 
real knowledge of Mathematics is better off pro tanto 



268 Five Years in an English University. 

for it, and if he has the requisites for this as well as those 
for being a good scholar, his mind is clearly more valu- 
able than if it were only fit for Scholarship. But when 
a man has not these requisites, and after several fruitless 
attemjDts and eight or nine months final fagging, can 
only just achieve a Junior Optim6, qumre if his time 
would not have been better employed in other studies 
allowed to be useful, more to his taste, and in which he 
makes infinitely more headway. By the time a youth 
has arrived at the age of eighteen or nineteen, suppos- 
ing him to have received any sort of decent i3re2>aratory 
education, he will generally have foimd out what he can 
do, and what he cannot, and in which direction his forte 
lies, and it is then certainly the best individual economy 
to make the most of what is in him. 

To the moral argument in favor of Mathematics, 
quizzical as it may appear to some, I am seriously in- 
clined to attach considerable weight. That Classical 
men, loving and adoring their favorite studies, proud of 
their excellence in them, and thinking it a surpassing excel- 
lence, may often be tempted to look upon Scholarship 
as the one great test of merit, and that it may prove a 
beneficial connective to step out into another mental re- 
gion and find themselves mere children there, may be 
readily admitted. Equally must we admit the benefit 
derived from overcoming a difficulty of long standing 
and getting through with an unpleasant duty. It teach- 
es patience during the struggle, and gives a healthy self- 
confidence after it. But it must not be forgotten that 
there are moral evils involved as well. One of them is 
the very serious trial of temper occasioned by Mathe- 
matical annoyances. The petulance and irritability thus 
engendered were matter of notoriety ; indeed you could 
always tell when a Classical man was under the influence 



Five Years in an English University. 2G9 

of a Mathematical examination in prospect, merely by- 
observing his ordhiary demeanor. There was also a 
great sense of unfairness — a feeling as if we were sacri- 
ficed to the Mathematicians, and the compulsory passing 
in Mathematics was a sort of bounty or protection upon 
them at our expense — which in some cases rose so high 
as to make it almost a personal matter. I have heard a 
man say he felt like going out and kicking the first Math- 
ematician he met. 

[The Classical men finally succeeded in abolishing 
this oppressive restriction, and the natural result was 
a large numerical increase in the Classical Tripos. When 
Mr. William Everett " went out " in '63, the second class 
alone was larger than the whole Tripos in my year 
('45). The respective numbers were — Whole Tripos, 
65, 24 ; Second Class, 28, 12. On the other hand, the 
Mathematical Tripos has not sensibly fallen off, though 
there is some diminution in the number of Senior Ops. 
Last year showed 124 graduates in Mathematics against 
114 in '45. 

Mr. Everett's name suggests to me that it may not 
be amiss to make brief mention of the Americans (so 
far as known to me) who have taken honors at Cam- 
bridge. A New Yorker (Pell, of John's) was Senior 
Wrangler in 1849. He afterwards went to Australia, 
and is, or was, head of a college there. Mr. Everett 
was First in the Second Class of the Tripos, and a Foun- 
dation Scholar of Trinity ; he took several college prizes, 
including the First Declamation Cup. Mr. George Lock- 
hart Rives, of New York (who had previously grad- 
uated at Columbia First in Mathematics and second on 
the general average), was Fifth Wrangler this year. He 
was — we may almost say of course — a First-Class man. 
in all the College examinations, and a Foundation Schol 



270 Five Years in an English University. 

ar (at his first trial, I believe). He also took the First 
Declamation Cup, making the third American who has 
carried off this very elegant prize, besides Mr. Douglass 
(another New Yorker, and a Senior Optime), who took 
the Second Cup in 1841. 

There are vague rumors of Bostonians having taken 
Honors at Oxford, but I was never able to get the par- 
ticulars. Our people generally have the wildest way of 
talking about English University distinctions ; if a man 
was a Double Second, they will tell you he was Senior 
Wrangler, and so on. Unless you know the person 
himself, or his nearest male relatives, you never can be 
sure of anything told you. 

The number of Americans at Cambridge has largely 
increased since the War. In my time the average was 
three ; now I suspect it is nearer a dozen. But most of 
them, I am sorry to say, are rather " swells " and " good 
fellows " than reading men. A friend and contemporary 
of mine, now a small-college tutor, was asked about his 
American undergraduates — some five or six in number. 
He replied that they were the nicest and most gentle- 
manly men in the world, hut there loasuH an ounce of 
work in the whole crew.'] 

After the result of the Scholarship examination many 
of my friends had advised me to give up competition for 
Honors, and retire gracefully with flying colors. But I 
had several inducements to attempt going out in Hon- 
ors. A little feeling of chivalry had something to do 
with it ; I wanted to give one or two men whom I had 
beaten at the Scholarship a chance of doing better in the 
Tripos. A better reason was a natural curiosity to test 
my knowledge and fix my relative place more definitely. 
Partly from originally defective preparation, partly from 
the irregular and interrupted manner in which my stud- 



Five Years in an English University. 271 

ies had been prosecuted, my Classics were in the most 
unequal order, in some things standing very fair, in oth- 
ers hardly well enough to be placed at all. I could not 
assure myself or others of my probable standing, the 
classical tutor's decision of last winter appearing in 
some measure contradicted by subsequent perform- 
ances. Moreover, I really was very desirous of a Fii-st 
Class, and, though not willing to risk my health reading 
for one, thought the chance worth some trouble as well 
as the risk of failure. But, more than all, I was influ- 
enced by a sense of pique. There was a general impres- 
sion that I could not get through, " that is," said the 
Mathematical tutor in whose team I had ineffectually 
tried to work the summer before, " not that you are tm- 
dble to pass, but you will get disgusted and sick of the 
work, and tlu-ow it up before the time comes." For 
this very reason I was resolved to get through. From 
my Jersey trip I had brought back only the discovery 
that I was strong enough to ride, and this greatly con- 
soled me for all Mathematical afilictions. After cram- 
ming, and fussing, and " writing out " three, four, or five 
hours in the morning, it was a delicious luxury to mount 
a blood mare and gallop over that carpet-like turf which 
one finds nowhere but in England. A friend, who did 
not intend to go out in Honors, but was staying up this 
Long to study Hebrew, he gave out — the uncharitable 
said for another purpose — used to accompany me. 

Even with this favorite amusement, restored after a 
deprivation of three years, it was hard to keep one's 
spirits up under the Mathematical burden. The feeling 
was exactly like that of eating sawdust. My mind 
could extract neither pleasure nor nutriment fi-om the 
food presented to it ; and yet this work did not occupy 
more than four hours a day of my time, some days not 



272 Five Years in an English University. 

even so much. But those few hours daily exhausted me 
more than twice the time spent on congenial studies 
would have done. Apparently I had time to spare for 
Classics, and my Pembroke friend, who was now work- 
ing a nice little team of three or four, begged me to 
come into it, or, at least, attend his examinations on Sat- 
urdays. But this I was forced to decline. To keep up 
the amount of energy requisite to carry me through the 
Senate House, it was necessary to abstain from any hard 
and systematic work during the rest of the day. It was 
desirable to unbend as much as possible. I read heaps 
of old ballads and romantic poetry — Motherwell, Shel- 
ley, Miss Barrett, sometimes Homer, soared up as high 
as I could from the disagreeable daily necessities of x 
and y into the cloudland of fancy and rhyme. Still it 
was not in human nature for a Classical man living 
among Classical men, and knowing that there were a 
dozen and more close to him reading away " like bricks," 
to be long entirely separated from his Greek and Latin 
books. My library stood in the small room which was 
my winter snuggery. The summer apartment contained 
only a big standing-desk, the eternal " scribbling paper," 
and the half-dozen Mathematical works required. A 
wise precaution, but it did not long avail. At first I 
admitted Homer to share my after-dinner hours with 
the old English ballads. Then, as I was anxious to do 
a good bit of Greek prose in the Tripos, wishing to 
make that one of my strong points, and liking the com- 
position itself, and it had been told me by Travis that 
the best way to acquire facility and elegance in it was 
to read plenty of good Greek jirose — the Republic, for 
instance — I took the advice, au jned de la lettre, and be- 
gan to read the Republic an hour after breakfast every 
day before attacking my Mathematics. In this way I 



Five Years in an English University. 273 

cleared five books of it; after reading two or three I 
was tempted to try my composition, and used on the 
off-days, when I had no Mathematical paper to do with 
my coach, to work at Greek j^rose, chiefly with a view 
to pace, until I could beat the ordinary examination 
time. It turned out rather a bad speculation in the 
end, for practising first for rapidity and then for spicy 
words, I came to disregard accuracy of Syntax, and to 
make wrong or slovenly constructions. All my compo- 
sitions (they were not confined to Greek prose) I put 
down in a book to have them corrected afterwards, but 
the three weeks intervening between the two Triposes 
was a very insufticient time to wash so much dirty linen 
either with comfort to my coach or profit to myself 
Had I given less time to composition, and gone on more 
slowly and -carefully under the supeiwision of a tutor, it 
might have turned out much better for me. But the 
fear that I should not be able to limit ray time in Class- 
ics if I once began them with a coach always frightened 
me off; and my Mathematical friends assured me I was 
perfectly right. " If you try to go on reading Classics 
with a tutor," said they, " you may give uj) the idea of 
getting through in Mathematics." 

And now what does this troublesome Mathematical 
course amount to ? Of how much does it consist ? Some 
general hint of its extent and scheme have already been 
given ; let us now go over them in greater detail. 

The subjects which a man who is merely a candidate 
to pass in Honors, whose only object is a place some- 
where — Wooden Spoon if he can do no better (and not 
unfrequently he would as lief have that place as any 
other, particularly if it can be obtained at a compara- 
tively small outlay of time and trouble) — are broadly 
defined as everything inside the Differential, which, how- 
12* 



274 Five Years in an English TIniversity. 

ever, is characterizing the schedule too liberally, as there 
are several matters from the Theory of Equations in Al- 
gebra to various introductory propositions in Astronomy 
which are quite independent of the Calculus, and never- 
theless do not come into the future Junior Optima's 
scheme. What I prepared is a fair specimen of the 
usual amount, as follows : — 

Euclid ; first Four Books, Sixth and Eleventh. 

Algebka ; as far as the Theory of Equations. 

Plaii^e Trigojstometrt. 

Spherical TRiGOisroMETRT. 

Newton's Principia ; first Three Sections. 

Conic Sections. 

Statics ; "] 

Dynamics ; ' So far as they can be carried with- 

Hydrostatics ; j out the Differential. 

Optics; J 

Descriptions of instruments enter largely into these 
four subjects, and are great godsends to the Classical 
men. 

Ten subjects in all. 

It must be boi-ne in mind that most of these subjects 
are read very differently from what they would be with 
us. Thus, in Trigonometry, the Sines, Cosines, etc., are 
not lines^ but ratios. Conic Sections are read entirely by 
analysis ; though there may be a " picture " to each pro- 
position, the relations of the lines are expressed entirely 
by Algebraic formulae. But for the occasional recur- 
rence of the terms " parabola " and " ellipse," a tyro who 
had read Bridge would not be able to discover that 
Hamilton was writing on the same subject. As Class- 
ical men, with very few exceptions, take more kindly 
to Geometry than than to Analysis, this makes it all the 
harder for them. 



Five Years i?i an English University. 275 

On the other hand, it is admitted that the getting up 
of a subject does not involve the knowledge of every 
page and every proposition in the ordinary text-books 
treating of it. As there is a certain run of questions 
from which examiners do not vary, these are marked for 
study and the others for omission (R. and O. are the 
usual marginal designations in pencil) ; and here it will 
be seen that much depends on the judgment and expe- 
rience of the coach. Still it must not be suspected that 
there is any lack of generality in the examinations. 
Suppose, for instance, there are seventy-five propositions 
in Conic Sections from among which questions in the 
Mathematical Tripos are usually set, and that the aver- 
age number of questions is seven ; this evidently leaves 
a pretty wide range. To make sure of the two ques- 
tions in Spherical Trigonometry, on the first morning's 
paper, the candidate must have mastered forty pages of 
close print. Then, again, besides the text-books, there 
are manuscripts containing variations and difierent meth- 
ods not to be found in the books, with which every man 
has something to do at some period of his course. Any 
such changes would not be allowed in Euclid or New- 
ton, but in other places men are sometimes enabled to 
make a show of originality with them. On the whole, 
then, it may be safely said that the getting up of a sub- 
ject is equivalent to getting up any one of the ordinary 
books upon it. 

The library required for such a course is not very ex- 
tensive. On each of the subjects comprised in it there 
are two or three books written by Mathematical Dons, 
and used indifferently according to the taste of different 
tutors and the previous purchases of different pupils. 
My stock consisted of — I really forget whose Euclid, 
"Wood's and Hind's Algebras, Snowball's Trigonometry, 



276 Five Years in an English University. 

Hamilton's Conic Sections, Evans' Newton, Earnshaw's 
Statics, Earnshaw's Dynamics, Miller's Hydrostatics, 
GrifFen's Optics, two or three other elementary works 
on Mechanics (one of them by Dr. Whewell), and two 
vohnnes of MSS. In addition to these, I borrowed a 
huge volume, called Pratt's Mechanical Philosophy. 
Most of these works were purchased at second-hand, 
some of them at fourth or fifth hand, an indignity which 
rarely befals Classical books. 

The manner of going to work is somewhat this. As 
the public examination is to be all pen and ink, the pri- 
vate instruction to prepare you for it necessarily involves 
much similar practice. So you arrange with your coach, 
according to his ideas of what you ought to get up, and 
your ideas of what you can or will get up, that you will 
be prepared next day or the day after in the Ellipse, or 
the First Section of the Principia, or all Algebra, as the 
case may be, and on that day he sets you in his own 
room a paper, perhaps of his ov/n composition, perhaps 
an old College Examination one, on the agreed subject, 
containing ten or fifteen questions. You do as much of 
this as you can and as fast as you can, and leave your 
papers to be looked over in your absence by the tutor, 
who on your return next day explains the errors in them. 
Any difiiculties in the text-books it is of course also his 
business to explain, but these are not of frequent occur- 
rence ; the trouble usually is not to understand but to 
rememher. 

How far is the candidate acquainted with these ten 
subjects, which we have intimated that he cannot prop- 
erly be said to know f If his temporary mastery of 
them were complete, that is, if he could be sure of doing 
all the bookwork that might be set from them, he would 
get just questions enough to make him a low Senior Op ; 



Five Years in an English University. 277 

even supposing he did no j^roblems. But it may be sup- 
posed that, as a general rule, this never happens ; so safe 
and thorough an acquaintance with the low subjects im- 
plies some ability to make use of their principles in 
problems, a Mathematical power, in short, which has al- 
ready lead the student to seek high Mathematical Hon- 
ors. (I say as a general rule, for there are some cases 
of men with a low Mathematical or half-Mathematical 
sort of talent, so to speak, who can be absolutely perfect 
in low subjects, and break down when they come to 
higher ones.) A non-Mathematical man must read for 
twice as much as he expects to do ; he can seldom make 
any thing except Euclid and Newton quite safe, or calcu- 
late with certainty on doing much more than half of a 
subject which he has got up. Nor can he make sure of 
solving even one problem, though he may find as many 
as three within his capacity. His ambition is generally 
limited to doing " riders," which are a sort of scholia, or 
easy deductions from the bookwork propositions, like a 
link between them and problems ; indeed the rider be- 
ing, as its name imports, attached to a question, the ques- 
tion is not fully answered until the rider is answered also. 
My experience was that I could floor a Euclid or New- 
ton paper, and in any other subject, taking bookwork 
and riders together, do enough for half marks. The 
highest degree I ever heard of as being taken without 
the Differential was 10th Senior Optim6, or in the first 
quarter of the Second Class. It was a case of extraor- 
dinary good luck as well as cleverness. In general, a 
man who has any pretensions to a Senior Op's place, even 
one of the lowest, just to let him in for the Medal, will 
have made some little progress in the Differential Cal- 
culus (the term Fluxions is never used), so that he can 



278 Five Years in an English University. 

do a few questions in the subject itself, and make some 
slight aj^plication of it in- other branches. 

As my Mathematics began to feel a little less shaky, 
and the desire of working up my Classics increased, and 
the pace of the men about me carried me along, and my 
health was decidedly improving, I now attempted a 
" spirt," or what was one for me. Beginning with five 
hours and a half, I put on an extra half hour to my work- 
ing time every three or four days until I had reached 
seven hours, at which point I remained for a week, and 
then suddenly gave way, broke down all at once, and 
was obliged to lie idle and recruit for some days. After 
that, I did not attempt more than five hours a-day till 
the Mathematical Examination, till then also I bid good- 
bye to my Classics. This was about the end of the 
Long, and the beginning of our last Undergraduate term. 

It was not an unpleasant life after all, that last Long ; 
a good grievance which always gives one something to 
talk about, delightful weather, pleasant rides, occasional 
cobblers, and the mild excitement, like an innocent sort 
of gambling, which a man feels when working to save 
himself in one Examination and gets credit in another. 



Five Years in an English University. 279 



'EN STPOT 'AKMH. 

Xevcauv d* el nov yvolri ararov eZf v6up. 

Sophocles' Philoctetes. 

Seeing if by any possibility be knew his Hydrostatics. 

Veby Fbee Teanslation. 

A BUSY time indeed is the term before going out 
to the " Questionists Candidates for Honors." 
Ants, bees, boat-crews spirting at the Willows, jockeys 
nearing the post and getting the last half inch out of 
their nags (though this last simile is perhaps more ap- 
propiate to the private tutors than to their pupils), are 
but faint types of their activity. They even break in 
upon their cherished hours of exercise. Lucky is the 
man who lives a mile off from his private tutor, or has 
rooms ten minutes' walk from chapel ; he is sure of that 
much constitutional daily. They have little appetites 
for their not very tempting dinners, and grudge them- 
selves their usual hours of sleep. The Classical men 
are rather the busiest; they have a double burden to un- 
dergo, and a most critical achievement before them — to 
get up Mathematics enough to pass, without sacrificing 
the time necessary to keep up their Classics to the prop- 
er point — the minimum of knowledge in the one case, 
the maximum of acquisition in the other. Of those raroe 
aves who are aiming, and with a fair prospect, at success 
in both Triposes, one hardly knows what to think. The 
reported saying of a distinguished Judge, who had 
himself taken the highest Honors of his year, in refer- 
ence to a young relative of his then reading double, 



280 Five ITears in an English University. 

" that the standard of aJ Double First was getting to be 
something beyond human ability," seems hardly an ex- 
aggeration. We must suppose such men to be so strong- 
minded and hard-headed that they make their Classical 
reading an amusement and relaxation after their Mathe- 
matical work. But the mere and single Mathematician 
has anything but a holiday ; indeed, as all his interests 
are concentrated in the approaching examination, he is 
the most anxious about the immediate result. To one 
danger Mathematicians are more exposed than either 
Classical or Double men — disgust and satiety arising 
from exclusive devotion to their unattractive studies. 
A high Wrangler once told me, just before the examin- 
ation, that he felt like wishing he had never opened a 
Mathematical book, and that he never wanted to see the 
inside of one again, so sick did he feel of the whole busi- 
ness. This was only a temporary state of mind, for he 
resumed his books in a few months, and ultimately be- 
came Lecturer in his College. This, of itself, shows 
how fatiguing the final spirt must be, when it could thus 
disgust a man with what was his favorite pursuit and 
final profession. 

Some j)revious remarks may have tended to give the 
impression that the standard of the Mathematical Tripos 
is throughout a low one. I hasten to disabuse the reader 
of any such misconception. The standard of the lower 
places is low, because the last class has become in a 
great measure a pass Class for the Classical men, and 
the lower half of the second Class has not quite escaped 
the same fate ; but to be among the first twenty or 
twenty-five Wranglers a man must have read Mathe- 
matics professionally^ besides possessing a good natural 
capacity for them ; and to stand among the best eight 
or ten he must be remarkably clever at Mathematics, 



Five Years in an English TJniversity. 281 

with considerable industry and a good memory into the 
bargain. As expressed by numbers, the disparity be- 
tween the top and bottom of the scale is not so enor- 
mous, the Senior Wrangler having perhaps 3,000 or 
3,500 marks to the Spoon's 200 ; but the actual dispro- 
portion in knowledge is much greater, because, from the 
shortness of the time allowed, the highest men, rapid as 
their pace is, seldom have time to do all they know. 
And now comes an important question. When we 
speak of a standard as high or loio, we have necessarily 
before our minds some test of comparison, and the one 
most natm-ally presenting itself in the present case is the 
standard of Mathematical attainment in other institu- 
tions renowned for their Mathematical teaching. How, 
for instance, Avould the Cantabs compare with the pupils 
of the Polytechnic ? It is rather a delicate query for 
any one to answer, but especially for a Non-Mathemati- 
cal man, who can only form an opinion of his own 
through inquiries from others, and comparison of their 
answers. A Cambridge man, who was Sixth Wrangler, 
once said publicly (in the columns of the Times) that 
perhaps the first eight or ten men on the Tripos might 
be considered respectable Mathematicians in France, and 
all the others would be laughed at ; but what data he 
had for this opinion, or what qualification for judging 
beyond the fact of having been a high Wrangler him- 
self, I was never able to ascertain. Another, who also 
stood high in Mathematics, and was a Fellow of Trinity, 
who had lived some time in France, was acquainted with 
several French savans, and had witnessed examinations 
at several French schools, went so far on the other tack 
as to maintain that one of the first eight or ten Senior 
Optim^s would be a high man at the Polytechnic. 
These are the extreme opinions, somewhere between 



282 Five Years in an English University. 

which the truth probably lies. A gentleman of the 
highest Mathematical attainments, who has had an ex- 
tensive foreign scientific correspondence, and wrote in 
Continental scientific journals when a mere youth, as- 
sured me, as the result of his experience abroad, that 
the standard was nearly equal in the two places ; that a 
high Senior Optim6 would be a respectable man at the 
Polytechnic, and a high Wrangler a very good man; 
that the best man of the Polytechnic might be Senior 
Wrangler, and vice versa. The unmathematical reader 
may perhaps be disposed to accept this opinion as that 
of a man having some authority ; the scientific one may 
form an idea of the Cambi'idge standard for himself in a 
very simple way. A set of Mathematical Tripos papers 
(those for the year 1845) will be found in the Appendix. 
Let him study these, bearing in mind the limited time 
allotted to each jDaper, so limited that he can scarcely 
appreciate its shortness without the actual experiment 
of writing one or two of them out;* and then consider 
that it is an ordinary thing for a man among the first ten 
Wranglers to floor the bookwork of the first four days ; 
that it is not unusual for a man among the first six to do 
as many as twelve problems on one paper ; that the Se- 
nior Wrangler of that very year did all the bookwoi'k 
except three questions, and more than forty problems 
out of sixty, clearing nineteen on one paper in three 
hours — and he then will have some little notion of the 
extent of preparation and competition. 

It usually happens that the Senior Wrangler is a 
long way ahead of the year, the oj)posite of what is ob- 
servable in the Classical Tripos, where there are gener- 

* Many of the high, men "write out their bookwork from mem- 
ory faster than an ordinary person conld copy the formulae from a 
book placed before him. 



Five Years in an English University. 283 

ally two men closely balanced and nearly equal. Among 
the first dozen seldom more than two very decided gaps 
occur, and frequently after the Second Wrangler nine 
or ten lie together so closely that, in sporting phraseol- 
ogy, a blanket might cover them. As there is no pro- 
vision in the printed lists for expressing the number of 
marks by which each man beats the one next below 
him, and there may be more difference between the 
twelfth and tliirteenth than between the third and 
twelfth, it has been proposed to extend the use of the 
brackets (which are now only employed in cases of lit- 
eral equality between two or three men), and put to- 
gether six, eight, or ten, whose marks are nearly equal. 
But the penchant of the general system is for keeping 
every man's individuality of place as much as possible, 
and the proposed change has not met with encourage- 
ment. 

The usual number of Wranglers — whatever Wrang- 
ler may have meant once, it now implies merely a First 
Class man in Mathematics* — is thirty-seven or thirty- 
eight. Sometimes it falls to thirty-five, and occasionally 
rises above forty. Perhaps from twenty-five to thirty 
of these are men known to have fair Mathematical stand- 
ing, and generally set down as probable Wranglers, or 
having a right to expect to be. The others are outsid- 
ers, whose reputation before the examination did not 
equal, or whose luck in the examination more than equals 
their desert. A few of the Small Colleges will give a 
fellowship for any place among the Wranglers, but most 
of them require the Questionist to be among the first 

* The Questionists used formerly to Tceep acts, deliver Latin 
disputations, etc., which entered as an element into the result of 
the examination. All this is now agreeably compromised by the 
payment of two shillings. 



284 Five Years in an English University. 

fifteen or twenty. Different Colleges assign different 
limits, which sometimes vary according to the number 
of vacancies and the supply of good men, though if 
there be a dearth of high Degrees among the B. A.'s of 
any college for some years in succession, the Dons of it 
usually make up the deficiency by electing members of 
other Colleges to their Fellowships. About six Wrang- 
lers on an average go out subsequently in Classics, and 
half of these are in the Third Class. 

The Second Class, or that of Senior Optim^s, is larg- 
er in number, usually exceeding forty, and sometimes 
reaching above sixty. This class contains a number of 
disappointments, many who expect to be Wranglers and 
some who are generally expected to be. It has a fair 
sprinkling of Classical men, either candidates for the 
Medals, or who have made sure of getting through and 
had something to spare. The Third Class or that of 
Junior Optim6s, is usually about as numerous as the first, 
but its limits are more extensive, varying from twenty- 
five to sixty. A majority of the Classical men are in it ; 
the rest of its contents are those who have broken down 
before the examination from ill-health or laziness, and 
choose the Junior Optim6 as an easier pass degree under 
their circumstances than the Poll, and those who break 
down in the examination ; among these last may be 
sometimes found an expectant Wrangler. As the gulfed 
and plucked men do not appear on the lists, and there 
is no particular reason for their being talked about unless 
they happen to be Classical, it is not very easy to arrive 
at their number. I fancy from ten to fifteen men are 
gulfed every year, and about the same number plucked. 
This will make the average number of candidates for 
Honors rather above than below one hundred and fifty. 

The mention of gulfed and plucked men brings me 



Five Years in an English University. 285 

"back to myself. About six weeks before the examina- 
tion, having gone over all my subjects and beginning to 
review them, I wrote out all I could in several old de- 
gree papers, with a view of ascertaining how many ques- 
tions I could answer. The result of my inquiries led 
me to the conclusion that twenty-four full questions or 
their equivalent, would get me safe through, while twen- 
ty would just land me in the gulf; and the result of my 
practice was that I could do just about the latter num- 
ber. So there I was on the verge, touch and go. I had 
already thrown aside my Classics entirely, and now ap- 
plied myself to the much execrated Mathematics with 
new diligence, polishing up my longer subjects with 
great zeal. At this time a lucky inspiration led me to 
get up Spherical Trigonometry ; it was only a few days' 
work, and I have reason to believe saved me. 

About ten days before the examination, just as I was 
beginning to make a visible impression on my work, and 
absolutely expecting not merely to pass, but to pass high 
among the Junior Optimes — not that it made much dif- 
ference if I did, except for some small bets on my place 
— there came upon me a feeling of utter disgust and 
weariness, muddle-headedness, and want of mental elas- 
ticity. I fell to playing billiards and whist in very 
desperation, and gave myself up to Avhat might happen. 
At the same time or a little earlier, one of our Scholars 
who stood a much better chance than myself, gave up 
from mere " funk," and resolved to go out in the Poll. 

It was a sort of melancholy satisfaction to me that 
there was a mortality, so to speak, among the examiners 
this year. Two out of the four * were taken ill, one 
Bome weeks before the examination, the other only a 

* Two of them are called Examiners and two Moderators, but 
their duties are substantially the same. 



286 Five "years in an English University. 

few days. In place of the former was appointed my 

friend E not to his extreme satisfaction so far as I 

was concerned, for the idea of helping to pluck me was 
not at all agreeable to him ; instead of the latter, whose 
illness took the authorities quite by sui'prise and obliged 
them to choose at the last moment whomever they could 
get, was put on my own private tutor. He had five men 
going out besides myself, and certainly would not have 
been chosen, only it happened that the examination j)a- 
pers were already in type, so that he had nothing to do 
with setting them and was only called on to examine. I 
had therefore the opportunity of saying in a joke that 
to pass so desperate a case as myself the Dons were 
obliged to put on my most particular friend and my ac- 
tual private tutor. 

The First Tuesday in January chanced to be an un- 
usually fine morning. Every Questionist who could find 
a four-legged animal mounted that day for a ride, as a 
luxury warranted and an exercise demanded by the oc- 
casion. There was not a beast to be found in the livery 
stables. I borrowed a friend's horse — the emergency of 
the case justifying the atrocity — and rode him till I could 
hardly keep myself on his back, or he himself on his 
legs. Next morning before the clock struck nine, I was 
among the nervous throng at the Senate House doors, 
and it had hardly ceased striking when I was writing out 
at full speed the first proposition that caught my eye on 
the paper. The particular time of the year when the 
examination is held gives rise to an occasional source of 
failure of a rather odd sort. The Senate House being a 
large, airy, stone-floor building, can be but imperfectly 
warmed if the weather be damp or severely cold. Thus 
a man with any tendency to imperfect circulation be- 
comes chilled, especially in his hands, and with chilled 



Five Years in an English University. 287 

hands, he is disabled to a considerable extent from writ- 
ing. The first year I was at Cambridge, one of our 
best Trinity men, afterwards a Fellow, lost fifteen or 
eighteen places among the Wi-anglers, as he believed, 
and as his previous and subsequent successes entitled 
him to believe, solely from being frozen tqy. Fortu- 
nately the present January was remarkably mild and 
pleasant throughout to the great comfort of us Ques- 
tionists. The low questions being nearly all comprised 
in the first day's papers, that day usually decides the fate 
of the doubtful men. They have, however, a few re- 
maining chances in the following days of this week; 
among others, two propositions from the Eleventh Book 
of Euclid, invariably set on Friday morning. Having 
achieved about twenty questions on Wednesday correct- 
ly, as I hoped, among them two in Spherical Trigonom- 
letry which are supposed to pay well, I began to feel tol- 
jerably confident. Next day I did nothing, but Friday 
morning I made sure of the two propositions in Euclid, 
and that afternoon actually hit ofi" a Euclid deduction, 
which, as it stood at the head of a problem paper, might 
be dignified with the name of problem. Greatly elated 
with this exploit, I copied it out in the most elegant pen- 
manship I could achieve, and wrote under the Q. E. F. 
about the only decent Greek Iambic I ever composed — 

noA'Arjv b(peik(j) tov irpopXtjuaTog x^P'-'^- 

The same day I met E walking, who gave me to 

understand that I was probably safe ; the only possible 
danger was that they might draw the line high up, 
and sacrifice a large number. This is one way and 
probably the only way in which an examiner may be- 
friend an examinee. Any attempt to mark unfairly or 
change relative places would be detected and exposed 



288 Five Years in\an English University. 

\ 
at once,* but the dividing lines between the Classes are 
not rigidly fixed by a cei'tain number of marks ; some 
slight variation is allowed according to the general 
standard of the year,t and here he may take his stand 
for including the greatest possible number. It happened 
once that two of the Mathematical examiners were par- 
ticularly interested in two Classical men; one had a 
Trinity friend who was pretty sure of a Chancellor's 
Medal if he could get a Senior Optime, the other a Caius 
friend who was safe for a First if he could i3ass among 
the Junior Ops. The two desiderata played exactly /into 
each other's hands, for the farther the lower line of the 
Senior Optim6s could be brought down, the more men 
must be let through to make the last class of the ordi- 
nary size, and the more men were let through altogether, 
the larger number of Senior Optim6s might be decently 
made. Between them they passed about twenty men 
who would otherwise have been gulfed , if not plucked 
ovTtright, increased the Senior Optim6s to the same ex- 
tent, and indirectly added thirty per cent, to the Classi- 
cal Tripos of the year. 

E had been studying character in the Senate 

House, and watching the faces, expressions, and modes 
of work of different men. An examiner has ample op- 
portunity for this, having little else to do. His chief 

* Sometliing of this kind occurred while I was in the Univer- 
sity. A Classical examiner having marked two Candidates belong- 
ing to his own College much higher than the other three exam- 
iners did, was suspected of partiality to them, and non-placeted 
(rejected) next year when he came up for approval. 

* This is the chief obstacle to calculating a man's place before- 
hand with accuracy. He or his tutor may know almost to a frac- 
tion the number of marks he is likely to get, but they cannot tell 
how all the other men of the year will do. 



Five Y'ears in a)i English Wniversity. 289 

business is to sec that no one brings in books surrepti- 
tiously. Any attempt at copying the self-interest of the 
candidates is sufficient to prevent among the higher men. 
Sometimes, however, when a Classic struggling to get 
through sits next to an acquaintance who is to be a 
Wrangler, I fancy the latter may write his papers in a 
larger hand than usual and lay them " convenient," as 
the Irish say, to his friend in difficulty. The general re- 
sult of the alphabetical arrangement, however, is to 
place you between two strange men of two strange Col- 
leges. Even in the lucky junction above mentioned, a 
good deal of discretion is requisite in the copyer. It 
would not do for him to " realize " any high bookwork 
or difficult problems. Not unfrequently — perhaj^s once 
in two or three years — a clumsy attempt of the sort is 
made ; the ready apprehension of the examiner detects 
it at once, and the unlucky culprit is filled with confu- 
sion by being called on to explain his own papers — 
which, of course, being unable to do, he is plucked with- 
out mercy. 

Sometimes an examiner is asked to explain the mean- 
ing of a question ; but such a demand, which conveys 
an indirect criticism on the perspicuity of expression of 
him who set the paper, is not common, nor has an ex- 
aminee usually any time to waste in asking for explana- 
tions. So E , having nothing better — indeed noth- 
ing at all to do during the two and a half or three hours 
a-day when he was in attendance, studied the men at 
woi'k and their different ways of looking and writing. 
We had three men out of Trinity, each aiming to be 
first of the College, but one had over-read himself and 
looked pale and ill, another was seated next a Small- 
Colleger who wrote about as much and as fast as him- 
self — he was likely to be made nervous to a detrimental 
13 



290 Five Years in an English University. 

extent by this proximity. These speculations were jus- 
tified by the result ; the third man, who had not been 
first in any of the College Examinations, but was now 
in perfect order, healthy and cool, beat his opponents by 

two and four places, resjDectively.* But E 's great 

fascination was the head Johnian. The best man from. 
John's is a candidate for Senior Wrangler pretty much 
as a matter of course, that College having a patent as it 
were for turning out Senior Wranglers, just as Trinity 
has for Senior Classics. This present year, however, one 
of the Small College men was a real Mathematical ge- 
nius, one of those men who, like E himself, are said 

to be " born for Senior Wranglers," while the Johnians 
were believed to be short of good men and owned it 
themselves. But now their best man suddenly came up 
with a rush like a dark horse, and having been spoken 
of before the Examination only as likely to be among 
the first six, now appeared as a candidate for the highest 

honors. E was one of the first that had a suspicion 

of this, from noticing on the second day that he wrote 
with the regularity and velocity of a machine, and 
seemed to clear everything before him. And on exam- 
ining the work, he could scarcely believe that the man 
co^^?c? have covered so much paper with ink in the time 
(to say nothing of the accuracy of the performance)^ 
even though he had seen it written out under his own 
eyes. By-and-by it was reported that the Johnian had 
done an inordinate amount of problems, and then his 
fellow-collegians began to bet odds on him for Senior 
Wrangler. But the general wish as well as belief was 
for the Peterhouse man, who, besides the respect due 

* One full question in liigli bookwork will often give a man 
two or three places among the Wranglers. 



^ive years in an English University. 291 

to his celebrated scientific attainments (he was known 
to the French Mathematicians by his writings while an 
Undergraduate), had many friends among both reading 
and boating men, and was very popular in the Univer- 
sity. His backers were not disposed to give him up. 
" One problem of his will be worth half a dozen of the 
other man's," said they; and there were grounds for 
this assertion, some of the problems being more difficult, 
and therefore marked higher than others, so that four 
on a paper may pay more than ten. 

Saturday afternoon finishes the work for the major- 
ity of the candidates. The papers set on the Monday 
and Tuesday of the week following contain only about 
one low question a-piece, to amuse the mass of the 
Questionists during the half-hour before the expiration 
of which they are not allowed to leave the Senate House. 
At the end of this half-hour a general rush is made, and 
five-sixths of the men take their departure. The last 
two days, in fact, serve chiefly to determine and arrange 
the places of the first twelve or fifteen men. To a low 
Wrangler, not to say a Senior Optim6, they make no ma- 
terial difference. On Wednesday morning the coaches 
used to be crowded (it is the rail now) with Question- 
ists going down, home, or elsewhere to amuse them- 
selves and divert their anxiety, as they best can, during 
the nine days that inteiwene. A few of the Classics fall 
to work immediately, even during the last two days of 
the examination. 

I went down to London — the Cockney talks of his 
Metropolis as the place to which all the world comes 
up ; the University man, with equal arrogance, makes 
Ms headquarters the highest part of the earth, and goes 
doion everywhither from it — taking a Theocritus in my 
pocket ; dined about with friends and went to see An- 



292 Five Years in an English University. 

tigo7ie, which was just then one of the lions, and received 
with a furore that showed how extensively Classical 
tastes are diffused among the educated classes in Eng- 
land. One interesting effect of the acting on a modern 
stage of this ancient play was, that it brought out the 
points, and showed how far Sophocles wrote for the gal- 
leries ut ita dicam. One line which drew down the 
house, 

" That is no State "wtere only one man rules," 

afforded a ludicrously melancholy examj^le of popular 
inconsistency. The very people who cheered this sen- 
timent had, but a few weeks before, been " hooraying 
for His Majesty the Emperor of all the Ilooshas." * 

* I may be pardoned for introducing here a little anecdote con- 
nected -with this potentate's visit to London, which, though not 
particularly relevant to anything in the present book or chapter, 
strikingly illustrates the dumminess of a certain class of the Eng- 
lish population. A fashionable snip, -who had authority for calling 
himself " breeches-maker to H. E.. H. Prince Albert," had an or- 
der to prepare some finery for the Emperor. A Polish officer, the 
ruin of whose country had not so far involved his own as to de- 
prive him of the ability to sport a good coat sometimes, was hav- 
ing his measure taken at this aristocratic establishment, when the 
glitter of a sumptuous, gold-embroidered pair of unmentionables 
caught his eye, and he inquired for whom the gorgeous garment 
was intended. The shopman, in a tone of awe befitting the sub- 
ject, informed his customer of their exalted destination. " Eor 
the Emperor, eh ! " said the Pole, bottling up his patriotic indig- 
nation as he best could, " well, I hope they will suit him." Hav- 
ing said which in an accent of extra sarcasm, he stalked haughtily 
away. Unfortunately, the gallant exile's imperfect pronunciation, 
or the excited imagination of the shopman, had erroneously pro- 
vided the prominent verb of the sentence with an initial aspirate, 
and the terrified underling hastened to his master, declaring that 
the officer had just left the shop with fell intent tj shoot the Em- 
peror ! As soon as the astounded master-tailor recovered the use 



Five Years iii an JEnglish University. 293 

Before the Mathematical list came out I was back 
at Trinity, and trying to put my Classics in order; the 
only thing I had then to attend to was Composition, in 
which, except Latin prose, I had never been good, and 
was now terribly rusty. My Pembroke friend (now 
promoted to the Tutorship of another College) was ab- 
sent on business, to the great disgust of his five puj^ils, 
of none more than myself, for I had relied very much 
on his assistance. We fled in different directions; I 
took refuge with one of my former coaches, the majestic 
" Jupiter." About the result of the Degree Examin- 
ation I felt no disqixietude, having pretty well made up 
my mind that I was to get through, and where I was 
made little difference — the Wooden Spoon would an- 
swer as well as anywhere else. Indeed, I gave out that 
it was the place I had read for, and some hints let drop 
gave me reason to suspect that the examiners would 
assign me that distinguished situation if they could find 

a reasonable excuse for so doing. E had, indeed, 

a theory of his own " that no clever man could be 
plucked, if he gave himself any trouble not to be," which 
he applied to myself in a flattering enthymem, " You 
need not be afraid, for," &c. ; while, on the other hand, 
I was conscious of not having done too much, nor all 

of his faculties and legs, he ran off to the police, and the police 
ran off after the conspirator, whom they speedily brought before 
the nearest magistrate, and with him " a conple of daggers," 
which, as proofs of his wickedness and part of his apparatus for 
shooting the Emperor, they had taken into custody also. After 
the worthy magistrate had been sufficiently horrified at these im- 
plements of artillery, they turned out to be ornainental pnjjer- 
knives, such as are common enough in ladies' writing-desks. The 
Pole had no difficulty in making a satisfactory explanation, and 
the tailors and policemen were heartily laughed at — and served 
them right; don't you think so, reader mine ? 



294 Five Years m an English University, 

that little too correctly. On the whole, there seemed 
a j)robability of my being selected to represent the 
ra.inimum amount of knowledge, even leaving out of 
consideration that the examiners prefer, ccsteris paribus, 
to put a Classical man into the forlorn hope, as he may 
make a joke of it, while a " single man" coming out at 
the end is only made a joke of himself 

At nine on Friday morning, just sixteen days from 
the hour when the examination began — an interval which 
will not ajjpear too long when it is remembered that 
nearly one hundred and fifty men have to be placed in 
individual order of merit — the list, signed by the exam- 
iners, is posted up outside the Senate House. The 
friends of the candidates, gownsmen and gyps com- 
mingled, throng about it, the result spreads in all direc- 
tions, and in a very short time the booksellers have it 
fairly printed in two or three forms, among others on 
sheets of letter paper ready prepared for mailing. I 
w^as quietly seated at breakfast, when my gyp entered to 
announce that I stood 112th, and also that the Johnian 
was Senior Wrangler. Soon after, the same friend 
who had reported the result of the Scholarship to me 
came in and stated, with some naivete, that he had begun 
to look from the end of the list ujj, knowing he would 
come to my name sooner in that way, and that he arrived 
at me ve)y soon. After which, he proceeded roundly to 
anathematize the Johnians, who had completely stolen a 
march on the rest of the University, and were not satis- 
fied with their unexpected gain of the first honor. 
" Some Johnian, invented on purpose," was third, to the 
extreme discomfiture of another high Small- Colleger 
and of our best three Mathematicians, the highest of 
whom stood only fifth, with a third Johnian just below 
him. When I obtained possession of a list, about mid- 



Five Years in an English University. 295 

day, I found there M^as only one man between me and 
the Spoon. It is not every Questionist that hits so near 
his place. There were fourteen plucked and fifteen in 
the gulf, so that of 143 candidates 31 did less than my- 
self, that is, less than the equivalent of twenty-four ques- 
tions. There were but five Classical men victimized, 
two of them probable First Classes. 

A new Tripos list alFords a man well up in Calendar 
and College gossip a good half-hour's amusement in 
studying the lucky hits and the disappointments, the out- 
siders who have come up, and the men who have been 
sold. Many of the last suflter either from wilful idleness, 
or egregious over-estimation of their own attainments, 
fostered perhaps by want of judgment and perception in 
their tutors. Only two places above me was a Small- 
Colleger who had been confident of a high rank among 
the Senior Optimes ; he was so upset by the disaiDpoint- 
ment that he dared not communicate the result to his 
father or show his face at home. Several supposed 
Wranglers had tumbled down to Senior Optimes, and 
some whose hopes and expectations did not rise above 
high Senior Optimes found themselves elevated into 
"Wranglers. More than one Questionist saw, to his dis- 
gust, another man who had sat next him in the exam- 
ination and covered much less paper come out twenty 
places over his head. The very worst man in a Cam- 
bridge examiner's eyes is he who does a great deal, but 
much of it wrong, and much of it inaccurately. Proba- 
bly fifty questions and eight average problems,* so done 

* The proportion of problems to bookwork done by the candi- 
dates is very various. The latter shows more reading, the former 
evince more natural Mathematical ability. It is by them that an 
outsider, who has not read high, frequently gets a good place ; his 
bookwork, for instance, might only be good enough to make him 



296 Five Years in an English University. 

as to get full marks, will bringa Questionist comfortably 
among the Wranglers, but a great many who think they 
have done more than this find themselves low Senior Ops, 
or even worse. 

The unexpected award of the Senior Wranglership 
was the great surprise of the year, and subject of con- 
versation for some time. It was said that the success- 
ful candidate had practised writing out against time 
for six months together, merely to gain pace, and had 
exercised himself in problems till they became a species 
of bookwork to him, and thus he attained the prodigious 
rapidity m solving them which enabled him to do nine- 
teen on one paper of three houi's, thirteen on another, 
and nearly as many on the third — more than two-thirds 
of the whole number set. The Peterhouse man, who, re- 
lying on his combined learning and talent, had never 
practised particularly with a view to speed, and perhaps 
had too much respect for his work to be in any very 
great hurry about it, solved eight or nine problems leis- 
urely on each paper, some of them probably better ones 
than the other man's, but not enough so to make up the 
diiference in quantity. Both men floored all the early 
bookwork, the Johnian presumably getting full marks, 
and T perhaps some extra marks for style.* In the 

thirtieth Wrangler, but lie does twenty good problems, and so 
climbs lip among the first ten. On the other hand, it sometimes 
happens that the third or fourth Wrangler does no more than five 
problems on all the three problem papers — in fact, is beaten in 
problems by some Senior Optimes — but such a man will floor the 
bookwork of the first four days, and do a fair proportion of that 
set on the last two. 

* It is possible to beat a paper or get more than full marks for 
it. This apparent Hibernicism is thus explained : — The ordinary 
text-books (Earnshaw, Griifen, Wood, etc.), are taken as the stand- 
ard of excellence, and a very good man will sometimes express the 



Five Years in an English University. 297 

higli work of the last two days the Peterhouse man beat 
his opponent, but he could not have been very far ahead, 
as the Johnian did all but three questions out of the four 
papers, and came out on the result of the whole exam- 
ination three hundred marks in advance. 

The disappointed candidate, however, was not with- 
out a chance of partially retrieving himself the very next 
week in the examination for the Smith's Prizes, which is 
considered by the knowing ones a better test of excel- 
lence than the Tripos, as it embraces a higher class of 
subjects, and the element of speed does not enter into 

it to such an extent. T 's friends, as well as himself, 

awaited the result with a mixture of hope and fear. In 
the end he had it all his own way, and beat the Senior 
Wrangler in the proportion of three to two. But this 
was a subsequent consolation ; for the present the tri- 
umph rested with the Johnians. 

operations more neatly and cleverly than they are worded in these 
books, in which case he is entitled to extra marks for style. This 

was the case with E in his Senate House examination. One 

of the examiners gave him extra marks for all his bookwork. 
13* 



298 Five Years in an English Unwersity. 



HOW I CAME TO TAKE A DEGREE. 
QvTjaKei, 6e ttIcti^ pXaardvei 6' aTvcarla. — Sophocles. 

WHEN" I put on my Bachelor's gown next day in 
the Senate House, it was with a feeling of some 
satisfaction at having mastered a formidable difficulty, 
and the little margin I had to spare rather enhanced this 
satisfaction. Looking upon the Mathematical examina- 
tion as Classical men often do, in the light of a fight 
with the examiners, I had gained the day. Moreover, I 
felt entitled to say that, low as the standard of a Junior 
Optim6 is compared with the professional acquirements 
of the upper men, I had gained a knowledge, though in- 
deed but a temporary one, of a considerable amount of 
low Mathematics, more than the majority of our students 
ever grasp at one time, more than when at Yale I should 
have considered myself or been considered capable of; 
for to cram up certain pages of a subject and recite them 
from day to day, is a very difierent thing from being 
able to write out any question at random in the- subject. 
And I repeat it, that for an unmathematical man it is not 
an easy thing to become even a Junior Optim6, and as it 
demands a fair acquaintance with the low subjects, so it 
requires a considerable expenditure of time and trouble. 

I was then rather proud of my Bachelor's degree • 
and yet there were circumstances connected with it that 
ought to have made me rather ashamed of myself 

That certain political and religious oaths are among 
the conditions of some of the En2;lish academical de- 



Five ITears in an English University/. 299 

grees is generally known to the American reader ; the 
particulars are not so well iniderstood. We are all 
aware that at Oxford the Thirty-nine Articles must be 
signed in advance. Hook's irreverent joke has taught 
us that. At Cambridge it is different. When the Fresh- 
man puts down his name on the College books he is not 
required to sign anything. During his first term he 
matriculates, and then affirms (j-vo/ltetu)') that he will 
keep the statutes and maintain the privileges of the Uni- 
versity to the best of his abihty, * which does not mean 
much, a great portion of the statutes, both College and 
University, being notoriously in point of fact and prac- 
tice obsolete, and never thought of except when some 
theological squabble or ultra martinetism on the part of 
a new Don brings them into notice. A Trinity Scholar 
on being elected swears that he will take the Bible for 
his rule of faith, and that he believes the royal authority 
to be supreme, (>n I hy no means subject to the .Jurisdic- 
tion of foreign bishoj); (externorum Episcoporum juris- 
dictioni minime subjectam), a hit at the Pope, which I 
imagine any goo 1 Protestant, republican or not, would 
rather go out of the way to swear than otherwise. But 
on taking his B.A., th.' Questioner must sign a declara- 
tion that he is a bona fide member of the Church of 

* Here is the Professio faithfully copied, no punctuation and 
all from the printed form. " Cancellario procancellarioque acade- 
mije Cantabrigiensis quatenus jus fasque est et pro ordine in quo 
fuerim quamdiu in hac ro )ublio'i deg; m comiter obtemperabo le- 
ges statut mores approbatos et privilegia Cantabrigiensis acade- 
mise quantum in me est observabo pietatis et bonarum literarum 
progressum et huju : academise status honorem et dignitatem tue- 
bor quoad vivam meoque suffragio atque consilio rogatus et noa 
rogatu defendam Hsec omnia in m recipio et polliceor me fideli- 
ter esse prsestiturum." 



300 Five Years in an JEnglish University. 

England, and also takes the oaths of allegiance and su- 
premacy. 

Hefore taking the degree^ it will be observed, not be- 
fore going into the examination for Honors. The effect 
of this is, that though a Dissenter or a foreigner cannot 
take a degree, he may be Senior Wrangler or Senior 
Classic, for the admission to the Classical TrijDos de- 
pends not upon having taken the B.A. degree, but upon 
having passed the examination for that degree; indeed 
he may take all the University Honors except the Smith's 
Prize and Chancellor's Medal, the institution of which 
prizes is so worded as to make only Bachelors eligible 
for them, and a theological prize or two of no great re- 
pute. But as the Fellowships are given to none but 
Bachelors, he is ineligible to them. This is not merely 
a possible case, but has actually occurred ; a Jew was 
Second Wrangler in 1837, and a Quaker Fourth the 
year before. 

The origin and reason of this restriction are evident. 
It was at first intended as a safeguard against the Ro- 
manists, and afterwards kept up to prevent them and 
Dissenters generally from obtaining a share in the gov- 
ernment of the University. For as the University is 
governed by those Graduates who choose to retain 
their names on the boards, giving degrees to Dissenters 
would be putting a portion of the University's destiny 
into the hands of men who might be hostile, and at best 
are not necessarily friendly to the religion which the 
University professes and is bound to uphold. It appears 
to me that this restriction has been subjected to much 
unmerited abuse, and that it is not antediluvian or big- 
oted, but simply self-defensive. If the connexion be- 
tween Church and State were dissolved, and the Estab- 
lished Church abolished, this restiiction would of course 



Five Years in an English University. 301 

be swept aAvay, and many other things with it ; but so 
long as the Established Church exists, I do not see how 
the Church Universities can admit Papists or Dissenters 
into their Senates. 

In regard to foreigners belonging to the same church, 
the restriction is less necessary and defensible, but it 
must be remembered that such cases are of very limit- 
ed occurrence, and that the institutions of England are 
not in general encouraging to foreigners; everything, 
from a University to a hotel, is solely calculated for the 
wants and benefit of the natives. Selfish and barbarous 
as such ideas must seem to the disciples of imiversal phi- 
lanthropy and fraternity, a reflecting native-horn Ameri- 
can, in view of the eflects which an indiscriminate recep- 
tion of foreigners, so as to place them almost immediate- 
ly on a level with the original inhabitants, has wrought 
in his own country, may perhaps suspect that the pru- 
dence of the English practice goes a great way towards 
making up for its imloveliness. 

It may indeed be urged that the University and Col- 
lege regulations might be so altered that a degree 
should not necessarily confer a vote, and that, as in the 
case of Fellowships, the presumed original idea and in- 
tention that the Fellows should be in Holy Orders, has 
been so far dejjarted from that in some Colleges the 
Fellows need not take Orders at all, in others not for 
seven years, while there are actually Bye Fellowships 
w^hich give their holders the dignity of the title without 
a voice in the College government, some rules might 
easily be generalized to apply to the parties under con- 
sideration. To this it may be answered that whatever 
real and desirable distinction the University confers 
consists not in the degree itself, but in the place occu- 
pied on the examination list, since the M.A. degree can 



302 Five Years in an English Tliiiversity. 

be obtained by any one who has taken a B.A. on paying 
a certain sum and performing some trifling ceremonies, 
and the ordinary B.A. impHes only an amount of knowl- 
edge of which, if it be harsh to call it contemptible, it 
may at least be said that it is nothing for any person to 
be proud of; and that such half measures as giving 
degrees which should not confer the full customaiy 
privileges, or Bye-Fellowships with their nominal sala- 
ries and inferior position, would not be accepted as com- 
pletely satisfactory, and would only encourage renewed 
demands for a more thorough change. 

Originally intending to leave the University as soon 
as the Classical Tripos list was out, my only anxiety 
about the question of a degree had been whether the 
want of one would prevent me from going out in Class- 
ics, and having once ascertained that it would not, I had 
taken no further thought about the matter. But this 
autumn my views underwent an important change. I 
wanted to keep my Scholarship, and thought what a nice 
little head-quarters my Trinity rooms would be while 
making excursions upon the Continent. Sometimes I 
had hopes that my place in Classics would justify my 
reading for a Fellowship. The Enemy always knows 
where to have a man, and is fertile in sophistic and Jes- 
uitical snares to delude moral men. At first I had seri- 
ous intentions of taking the oaths without scruple or 
pause. I was in an awful state of disgust with matters 
at home on account of the recent Presidential election. 
The consternation and despair into which a large portion 
of the Whig party were thrown by the defeat of Henry 
Clay will not readily be forgotten by any one who was 
old enough at the time to take an interest in public mat- 
ters, which in our country does not imply a very ad- 
vanced age. But the terrible prostration of heart with 



Five Years m an English University. 303 

which it affected a certain class in the Northern States, 
and 2:)articularly in New York, has not been generally- 
appreciated out of that class, nor am I aware that it ever 
found distinct public expression ; perhaps the nearest ap- 
proach to such expression was contained in the conclud- 
ing numbers of the most elegant, gentlemanly, and every 
way respectable journal that our city ever boasted, which 
expired in pure disgust and despair, as it were, a few 
months after Polk's election. 

I was one of those who, in popular phrase, swore by 
Henry Clay, and the blow fell on me with peculiar force 
for two reasons. First, being a non-resident, I had not 
an opportunity of observing those sudden premonitions 
of calamity which did something towards preparing 
those at home for the shock ; secondly, I had been in 
the habit of making Henry Clay's election the iiniversal 
answer to all objections against America. " We were 
unfortunate. Harrison died, and the other man be 
trayed us. Consequently, there has been a great tem- 
porary demoralization. Only wait till Clay is President, 
and you'll see how gloriously we shall get on." When, 
therefore, the much desired steamer brought defeat in- 
stead of victory, when the test which I had myself se- 
lected turned out against me, the exultation of my anti- 
Republican acquaintances was undisguised, and my dejec- 
tion utter and unmitigated. I had not a word to throw 
to a Puseyite. 

Already in an unfavorable mood of mind, I was not 
likely to have my spirits raised by such epistolary intel- 
ligence as I received from home. Cicero's letters at the 
worst time of the Caesarean and Pompeian troubles 
could hardly present a more melancholy and dishearten- 
ing picture. The feeling of our New York Whigs was 
very different from what it would have been in the event 



304 Five Years in m% English University. 

of Martin Van Buren's re-election. That would have 
been Paradise in comparison. By the elevation of Polk 
they saw themselves given up to the mercy of Irish ali- 
ens and rampant slaveholders. War with England and 
the indefinite extension of slavery were all hut inevita- 
ble. They put no longer trust in anything, not even in 
their leaders. Nor did Whigs only feel inclined to 
despond. There were many Democrats who thought 
the casting-off of Mr. Van Buren by his party a foul 
wrong, as they afterwards testified at the ballot-box, and 
who at the same time saw in the anti-rent agitation — 
an agitation encouraged by professed members of the 
Whig party — a local evil more dangerous than any fed- 
eral one. In short, a large proportion of the wealthiest, 
best-educated, and most estimable men in our State 
seemed verily to have despaired of the Republic. And 
what gave an apparent confirmation to their doleful views 
was the absence, except in a very few cases, of any im- 
mediate personal calamity or wrong to induce a preju- 
dice of grief I was seized with the infection, and dread- 
ed little less than proscriptions and novoe tahulce. 

That winter was a time of darkness at home and 
abroad. We had a lamentable foreign reputation, es- 
pecially among those who had been our warmest Mends. 
The two great parties in England had undergone a sin- 
gular change of feeling towards us. The Liberals talked 
and acted as a man might to an ungrateful friend or pro- 
tege who had turned out badly. The more an English- 
man had leaned toward Radicalism, the prouder he had 
been of any instances of good government and prosper- 
ity in the United States, as they tended to promote his 
principles at home, and the more bitter was his disap- 
pointment when the conduct of some j)arts of our Union 
furnished the Conservatives with an argument against 



Five ITears in mi English University, 305 

our institutions. The most hitter things that were said 
against America at this time ■proceeded^ with scarce ati 
exception, from English Liberals. The Tories and Con- 
servatives, on the contrary, as if grateful to our Repub- 
lic for having unwittingly furnished them with weapons 
against Democracy, were far more inclined than former- 
ly to be just and generous to the individual citizens of 
it, especially when such individuals belonged to the mi- 
nority party, for then they regarded them as a sort of 
victims, and too good for their country. 

At the same time it is true now, and it was true even 
then, that Englishmen, whatever their political opinions 
among themselves, or their expressed opinions with us, 
are always flattered when an American sides with them. 
They are really jealous, though they would not own it 
even to themselves, of our preference for the French ; 
and with all their suspicion of foreigners, the greatest 
compliment an American can pay them is to take up his 
residence in their country, or say anything that induces a 
suspicion of his having such an intention.* And it now 
happened that many of those about me, seeing how dis- 
gusted I was with the real or supposed state of things 
at home and our unlucky reputation abroad, did their 
best to persuade me to take a degree, which they looked 
upon as a sort of earnest that I would continue among 
them. They were not indeed my best and most 
intimate friends, or the men of most ability among 

* "WTien Mr. Everett was replaced at the the Court of St. James, 
a report was circulated that he intended to remain in England aa 
a private gentleman. This report I heard from several quarters, 
and was frequently questioned about it. It is hardly necessary to 
say that nothing had been said or done by our Minister or his 
friends to give foundation or countenance to such a rumor ; it 
arose entirely from the desire of the English to retain him there. 



306 Five Years in an English University. 

my acquaintances ; from some of these I received 
different and better counsel. "Why should you 
be so downcast about an election ?" asked one ; " I am 
sure I wouldn't annoy myself, if O'Connell were 
premier to-morrow." And the same or another man, 
after a long discussion of the matter with me, ex- 
pressed his conviction that, upon my own show- 
ing, there could never be any serious encroachment 
on the rights of property in a country which had so 
many small proprietors. And although these conclu- 
sions were a little too philosophical, and not altogether 
borne out in practice, the Papal Aggression excitement 
being a sufficient refutation of the first, and the Anti- 
rent iniquities of the second, still they were far nearer 
the truth and more worthy of serious consideration than 
the arguments by which I was assailed on the other side. 
But the strongest of these arguments were supjDlied by 
my own pique and disgust. " What's the use of stand- 
ing on such a punctilio ?" said I to myself " Your coun- 
trymen, in disavowing the Native American party, have 
repudiated their own nationality, and put the foreign 
settlers over their own heads. The boast of the Irish 
in New York, that they controlled the Presidential 
election, has been verified. Protestantism is at a dis- 
count. After all, a man's religion is dearer to him than 
his country. Better be Queen Victoria's subject than 
John Hughes' slave. Our people declared that their 
franchise was not worth having when they thus sent it 
a-begging. Nor ought I to entertain any sentimental 
scruples about professing a temporary allegiance to a 
country which I may be ultimately compelled to make 
my abode." Still I could not bring myself to take the 
oaths. Then the tempter hinted a most Jesuitical me- 
dium, a way to avoid all practical difficulty, though, 



Five Years in an English University. 307 

like most similar compromises, it would probably have 
imited all difficulties, if any practical ones had existed, 
or had there been any other than a moral objection in 
the way. It was this. The oaths at Cambrige had come 
to be such mere formulae that people cared very little 
about them, and hardly knew what they swore. In the 
Senate House, after the Senior Wrangler has presented 
himself alone, the rest of the men are sworn in batches 
of a dozen each, the oath, or part of it, being read to 
them, and a Testament handed round to be kissed. I 
might go up with the rest and pass the book by, which 
there was every opportunity of doing without detec- 
tion, so that I could thus get the degree without taking 
the oath of allegiance at all. This I finally did, and in 
one sense the experiment was perfectly successful ; no 
one of those in authority ever noticed my evasion, 
either at the time or afterwards. But it did not escape 
observation in all quarters, and a great deal of the 
moi-al influence which I had heretofore possessed was 
lost at once. 

Many persons will think me foolish for relating a 
circumstance so much to my own disadvantage ; but re- 
flection has convinced me that where the recital of a 
young man's errors contains nothing in itself mischiev- 
ous, it is part of his duty and expiation to relate them as 
a warning to others. Besides the obvious moral of 
never giving up the ship, there is another to be drawn 
from my misadventure. 

Let every young man beware how he violates his in- 
tegrity or deviates from a straightforward, honest course 
in the smallest matter. The temporal consequences may 
not be injurious, nay may even for the time being bring 
the convenience or advantage expected. But the con- 
sciousness of aberration from the j^ath of honesty will 



308 Five Years in an English University. 

continually oppress liim ; he will have lost irretrievahly 
the pride of rectitude — a pride which is honorable and 
righteous, and has nothing reprehensible in it. My con- 
duct on that occasion has been a continually recurring 
source of mortification to me, which the lapse of years 
cannot obliterate, and the recollection of it has frequently 
interposed to check me in plans of improvement for my- 
self and others. 

[The looseness and carelessness with which college 
and university oaths are administered and taken, the 
utter uselessness of some of them (owing to the obso- 
leteness of their subject matter), the oppressiveness of 
others to conscientious men, and their general influence 
on the relations of the Church and the Universities to 
the outer world, — all these points have frequently come 
up for discussion. The Commission of 1850-'51, recom- 
mended (though somewhat cautiously), alterations in a 
more liberal sense. Two or three years ago, the whole^ 
machinery for conferring B. A. degrees was brought to 
a stand by a Jew's coming out first in the mathematical 
tripos. As the Senior Wrangler has to take his degree 
alone and before all the others^ he is an essential and in- 
dispensable part of the programme. It was necessary 
to pass a special " grace " or note of the Senate, in order 
that Mr. H — ■ — might take his degree without the oaths. 

Not only have the oaths on taking the B. A. Degree 
at Cambridge been abolished within the last three years, 
but all the other tests of various sorts for Fellowships, 
Memberships of the Senate, etc., have been removed by 
the University Tests Bill of 1871, 34 and 35 Victoria, 
ch. 26.] 



Five Years in an English University. 309 



THE JioXkol AND THE CIVIL LAW CASES. 
" Nos numeri sumus." — Horace. 

DURIISrG the week of interval between the examin- 
ation for Mathematical Honors and the publication 
of the Honor list, takes place the examination of candi- 
dates for an ordinary degi'ee, popularly called the irollol, 
and by abbreviation, the Poll men. Their number is 
greater than that of the candidates for Honors in the 
proportion of four to three, but as the range of subjects 
is more limited, the papers shorter, and the examiners 
more numerous, the classification of the men goes on 
ixQ2iv\Y pari jyassu with their examination, and the list is 
issued on the same day as that of the candidates for 
Honors. There are on an average about two hundred 
Poll men, and it is a most striking instance of the min- 
ute subdivision in vogue at Cambridge examinations, and 
the introduction of competition wherever possible, that 
every one of these two hundred men is arranged in order 
of merit according to his marks, except some fifteen or 
twenty who have just succeeded in passing, and who are 
bracketed together at the end, and familiarly known as 
the " Elegant Extracts." * The head man is called Cap- 
tain of the Poll, which is deemed among the non-reading 

* I -wTite of this arrangement as one actually existing, though 
in strict correctness I should use the past tense when speaking of 
it. For the alterations which have been made in the Poll, see the 
chapter on " Recent Changes at Cambridge." 



310 JFive yews in an English University. 

men almost as great an honor as Senior Wrangler or 
Senior Classics among the reading ones. 

As an impression appears to prevail in some literary 
quarters of our country that the great bulk of English 
University students study and know very little, and the 
hard-reading men are very few in number, it may be worth 
while to look once more at the facts and figures of the 
case. The proportion of Honor men to Poll men is, as 
has been already remarked, in round numbers, one hun- 
dred and fifty to two hundred, or three to four, that is, 
three-sevenths of the whole. ISTow, though most of the 
Junior and some of the Senior Optim6s have not worked 
hard at Mathematics throughout their whole Undergrad- 
uate course, we have to take out of these the Classical 
men, who have been busily employed in their pet pursuit. 
Still, after allowing for these, there may remain some 
thirty idle men on the Honor list, and against these we 
must put about the same number of reading men among 
the TTo^Aoi. For insufiicient preparation of some Poll 
men, particularly those who are bipLfj.a-&Eis, and have taken 
up the Church late in life, gives them enough to do in 
preparing for their Little Go and Degree examinations, 
after the time occupied by the College examinations is 
deducted. There are also many men every year con- 
tending for the Capta,incy of the Poll, some for the hon- 
or, such as it is, others because it will help them to get 
Poll pupils afterwards. The first thirty men, or so, in 
the Poll, have their subjects polished up with great care, 
and may be called all but perfect in them. (I had per- 
sonal assurance of this from a friend who was one of the 
Poll examiners.) We have, therefore, three sevenths of 
the Undergraduates faithful students, while about one 
man in nine (that is to say, all the First Class of the Tri- 
pos, and nearly all the Wranglers) is a very hard stu- 



Five Years in an English University. oil 

dent. I imagine there are not many Universities or Col- 
leges in the world of which more could be said with 
truth. 

The fixed subjects for the Poll examination are the 
Acts with all the History, Geography, Antiquities, and 
" cram " generally pertaining thereto ; Paley's Moral 
Philosophy, three Books of Euclid, Arithmetic and low 
Algebra, and certain portions of Mechanics and Hydro- 
statics. The movable subjects are a Greek and a Latin 
author as in the Little-Go. These are declared two years 
in advance, so that there is plenty of time to polish 
them up. 

Besides the degree in Honors and the ordinary de- 
gree, there is but one other way of obtaining a B. A. 
It is in Civil Lmo. Not more than a dozen or fifteen 
men — sometimes not so many — avail themselves of this 
outlet, which is generally considered something even 
below the Poll — unjustly I suspect, for the candidates 
must at least have attended the Professor's Lectures for 
three consecutive terms, to say nothing of Avhat is re- 
quired in the examination. The lectures generally fol- 
low the order of subjects in Halifax's A7ialysis of the 
Roman Civil Law. The principal text books in my 
time were these : — 

Corpus Juris Civilis. 

Harris's Jastiniani Institutiones. 

Taylor's Elements of the Civil Law. 

Heineccei Antiq. Horn. Syntagma. 

Elementa Juris Civilis. 

Vinnii Comment, in quatuor Libros Lnstitutionum. 

Burn's Ecclesiastical Law. 

Blackstone's Commentaries. 

[This examination has since been merged in the 
Moral Science Tx-ipos. See chapter on recent changes.] 



ol2 Five Years in an English University. 



THE CLASSICAL TRIPOS. 

" Cave ne titubes," — hobace. 

" Mind your eye ! " — H. walkee, esq. 

THE time now drew nigh when the few picked men, 
who had resisted the temptations of idleness anc| 
escaped the perils of Mathematics, were to fight out 
their last great battle. Trinity Scholars, University 
Prize men, outsiders from Small Colleges, double men 
(these the fewest of all) mustered from all quarters. 
We made a very small show numerically, only twenty- 
six candidates out of the whole year, which might be 
set down in round numbers at three hundred and fifty 
men. At least five who had intended to augment our 
numbers were killed off in the Mathematical Tripos. 
Nineteen of us were reading for the First Class, so that 
there was a pretty extensive prospect of sells. Out of 
the twenty-six sixteen were Junior 023tim6s, so that al- 
lowing a few to be trying their luck in Classics only for 
the chance of piecing out an inferior Mathematical de- 
gree, it was pretty clear that full half of the candidates 
had read Mathematics for no other purpose than to en- 
able them to display their knowledge in the Classical 
Tripos. Of the remainder, five were Wranglers, four of 
these Double men, and the fifth a favorite for the 
Wedge.* Two men who had been rivals all the way 

* The last man is called the Wedge, corresponding to the Spoon 
in Mathematics. This nam^e originated in that of the man who 
was last on the first Tripos list (in 1824), Wedgeicood. Some one 
BTiggested that the wooden wedge was a good counterpart to the 
wooden spoon, and the appellation stuck. 



Five Years in anJEJngUsh University. 313 

through school and through College were racing for 
Senior Classic. After these two more were known and 
spoken of as nearly equal, and then " it was any one's 
place." The First Class was likely to he small, the year 
not being a good one on the whole ; what little strength 
it had was in Trinity ; our College supplied fifteen of the 
twenty-six candidates, thirteen of them reading for the 
First Class, and only four sure of it. 

So said ordinary gossip ; for all these jDrobabilities, 
the merits of the year at large and of the different men 
in it, are eagerly discussed and canvassed beforehand, 
not only by the parties interested and their immedi- 
ate friends, but by reading men generally. Still, how- 
ever the candidate's chances may be made to fluctuate 
by such relative circumstances, his own positive fund of 
knowledge and readiness in expressing it must be his 
main reliance, and accordingly he now works with a will 
if he ever did in his life. 

Any one whom business or pleasure has led to drive 
habitually a fast trotter on the road can testify to the 
continual care and practice necessaiy to keep the animal 
in jDroper condition ; how he must be a good horse in 
the first place, and then regularly worked, must be fast 
and enduring, and not nervous or easily frightened in a 
crowd, and ready to go his best at any moment. I re- 
ally cannot conceive any better comparison for the train- 
ing to which the Cantab with an examination in view 
subjects himself — especially when that examination is 
the Classical Tripos, which covers more ground than 
Hny other.* I might carry out the analogy, and say that 
xii both cases much depends on the skill of the driver. 

* Except the University Scholarship, and Medals, where the 
prizes are liDcH/id to one or two of the candidates, and the com- 
petition not general. 
14 



314 Five Years in an English University. 

Many a man has owed several places, perhaps the dif- 
ference of a class, to the skill of his coach. 

Three things are requisite in the Tripos : first, an accu- 
rate knowledge of Greek and Latin Syntax, and a corres- 
ponding dexterity in unravelling difficult constructions. 
Without this groundwork no man can be sure of a good 
place. Next, the aspirant must he skilled in Composi- 
tion, must be able to write Latin and Greek Prose, 
Greek Iambics, and two or three kinds of Latin verse. 
Thirdly, he must have a very large vocabulary, so that 
he will seldom meet with a word which is not familiar 
to him. A fourth requisite which might occur to the 
reader — the knowledge of archaeology, law, history, &c., 
all that is comprehensively and not altogether fairly 
designated as cram — does not enter very largely into 
the qualifications for the Tripos. The questions set by 
way of riders to the passages given for translation are 
not numerous, nor do they bring many marks. In this 
respect, there is a great difference between the Cam- 
bridge Tripos and the Oxford Schools. 

In comparing these different elements of success, it 
has often been observed, and I think with justice, that 
writing Greek and Latin, particularly Greek and Latin 
verse, occupies too high a place. The Composition 
papers counting at least two-fifths of the whole, a boyish 
knack in the manufacture of verses often gets the better 
of a more mature knowledge of language. I have known 
a man whose translations were only ordinary Third Class 
standard get himself a good Second by a brilliant copy 
of Elegiacs, the remains of his schoolboy proficiency ; 
and one of my acquaintances, who stood third in his 
year on several of the translation papers, but being a 
Double man had no time to practise Composition, fell 
to a low place in the Second Class. 



Five Tears in an English University. 315 

At Oxford a candidate for the First Class selects his 
twelve authors. At Cambridge he reads as much as he 
can. Though able to work but a few hours a-day, I was 
a fast reader when at work, and had covered a fair 
amount of ground. Since entering the University I had 
either read for the first time or reviewed the following 
authors : — 

Homer; all the Odyssey, Books XIII. and XXIV. 
of the Iliad. The Homeridian Hymns. 

Hesiod ; Shield of Achilles, Works and Days. 

^SCHYLUS ; all (seven plays). 

Sophocles ; all (ditto). 

Aristophan^es; all (eleven plays). 

Euripides ; Medea, Hippolytus, Ion, Bacchse, Hec- 
uba, Phenissse, Cyclops. 

Pin'dar; all. 

Theocritus; all. 

Herodotus; Books I. and VII., with numerous ex- 
tracts from the others. 

Thuctdides; Books I. II. IV. VI. VII., and all the 
difficult passages in the other three. 

Xenophon's Banquet. 

Demosthenes ; the five Aiolwhus and Onetor Ora- 
tions, the De Corona, Uapairpeajina, the Ad Lep- 
tinem. 

Plato ; Phsedrus, Phoedo, Protagoras, Georgias, 
Symposium, Theatetus, Sophista, Politicus, Five 
Books of the Republic. 

Aristotle ; the Rhetoric, Five Books of the Nico- 
machean Ethics. 

Theophrastus's Characters. 

Lucretius ; Book I. and extracts from the others. 

Catullus; all. 



316 Five years in an English University. 

ViKGiL ; the Georgics, Six Books of the JEneid. 

HoEACB ; all. 

Juvenal; all. 

Peksius; all. 

Peopertius ; Books I. and IV. 

Plautus ; all (twenty plays). 

Maetial ; all the Epigrams more than four lines in 
length. 

Cicero; the Tusculan Questions, De IsTatura Deo- 
rum, De Divinatione, De OflSciis ; the Archias, 
Balbus, Mursena and Cluentius. 

Livt; Books I. and XXXI. 
Besides these, there were some subjects not strictly 
available in the Tripos, such as extracts from Callima- 
chus and Apollonius Rhodius, fragments of Alcseus and 
Sappho, and several books of Athenseus. 

It will be observed that the above list includes no 
portion of my previous jDreparation for the University. 
Some of my school reading, e. g., Sallust and the ear- 
lier books of the Iliad, I had a real knowledge and mem- 
ory of But the books comprising the course at Yale 
College I could not be eaid to have read in the Cam- 
bridge sense, with the single exception of Tacitus, an 
author whom I had much fancied, and worked up his 
History, not with a view to the limited requirements of 
the recitation room, but according to my own idea of 
how he ought to be studied and translated. 

With these additions made to the above list, it will 
tolerably well represent the reading of a candidate for a 
good place in the Tripos. Of some authors, such as 
Aristophanes and Plautus, there was more than the 
usual amount; of others, as Herodotus, Demosthenes, 
Cicero, and probably Thucydides, rather less ; and gen- 
erally speaking, I was better read on the higher authors, 



Five Years in cm English Univei'sity. 317 

or those which come later in a student's reading, than on 
the more ordinary ones. On my knowledge of Aristo- 
phanes, Theocritus, Pindar, Plautus, etc., I relied per- 
haps too much. Some of the books in the list I of course 
knew better than others, but perfection in them all would 
have given me but a moderate chance had I depended 
only on finding pieces set which I had read. In the long 
authors, every man must trust to his general knowledge ; 
of Herodotus I had read but two Books, yet it was not 
easy to find a passage or even a word in him that puz- 
zled me, I was so well up in his peculiar dialect. My 
great deficiency was in Composition; the only kind 
which I could do well and accurately was Latin prose , 
at Greek Iambics, Greek prose, and Latin verse I worked 
all day, but with very moderate success. Our year, in 
spite of its bad reputation, showed an unusual independ- 
ence of coaches. Most of the best men read by them- 
selves during this month, dispensing with all assistance. 
This increased the uncertainty of speculation on their 
positions. 

The examination was to begin on Monday. The Sat- 
urday immediately previous I devoted to a long ride in 
company Avith two fellow-sufl:erers, according to the 
Cambridge tradition that a man should be nearly idle 
for the day or two just before an examination — a theory, 
however, which very few have the courage and coolness 
to put in practice. For next week I had made all pre- 
parations in the most artistic way ; moved my bed into a 
room with a fire-place, invited a difterent friend to dine 
with me every day, and projected a series of nice little 
dinners to make up for my long abstinence. (Before the 
examination a man is on diet ; during and after it he re- 
quires to be well fed.) On Sunday, I had intended to go 
to St. Mary's as usual in the mornmg, and be systemati- 



518 Ji^ive Years in an English University. 

cally idle for the rest of the day ; but the fit came too 
strong upon me, and I fell to writmg Elegiacs, and af- 
terwards looking over marked passages.* If there are 
no Sundays in Revolutionary times, there are very apt 
to be none the fortnight before a Cambridge Examiua- 
tion. 

But Sunday work is seldom of any profit, even temp- 
orally speaking, and mine was no exception to the rule. 
It would be as great a bore to the reader as to myself 
were I to recall in detail all the chances, j^erils, and dis- 
asters of that week ; how, when I had carefully practised 
writing Elegiacs, and acquired a tolerable command over 
them. Hexameters, of which I had not written three coj)- 
ies in two years, and probably not five in my life, were 
set the first moi-ning ; how, after lying awake from ner- 
vous excitement the whole night before the Greek Iam- 
bics, I dozed ofi" towards morning and very nearly over- 
slept the paper; how I was frozen tip on Thursday 
morning, the weather having changed from mild to very 
cold, as if for my special discomfiture, so that half my 
Greek Prose went up nearly illegible and without ac- 
cents ; and the report spread that I had broken down 
completely, or, as a Johnian elegantly expressed it, was 
squashed. Sufiice it to say, that the five days were over 
at last, and I was left nearly delirious. A friend, who 
had been ill himself during an examination, and could 
therefore appreciate my condition, carried me out for a 

* As a Cantab reads, lie marks any particularly strange word 
or difficult passage for future reference ; this is a great assistance 
to him in running over an author rapidly. Interleaved copies of 
•works are very common, and besides these, many men keep note- 
books to set down at length any difficulties they meet. To have 
" got up " a book thoroughly, almost means that you have prepared 
a new edition of it. 



Five Years in an English University. 319 

long walk on Saturday morning ; that night I made up 
for the lost sleep of the six preceding, and on Sunday 
was in my usual state, with the exception of a propensi- 
ty to egit and drink all that came in my way, which last- 
ed a full month till the waste of the system had been 
reiDaired. 

The same evening I called on my right-hand neigh- 
bor in the examination, whose style of work, busy as I was, 
had occasionally fallen under my notice. He was one of 
the candidates for Senior Classic, had read almost every- 
thing, and written verses ever since he was twelve years 
old. His learning was great, his Composition wonder- 
fully rapid and elegant, his taste generally unexceptiona- 
ble ; but he was not very clear-headed or accurate, and 
therefore always liable to make slips of the pen. His 
rival was a respectable Mathematician, and had just taken 
a Wrangler's degree, was much behind him in speed, 
elegance, and quantity of knowledge, but fearfully accu- 
rate, and never forgetting anything he had once learned. 
My neighbor, who knew exactly his own strong and 
weak points as well as those of his old schoolmate and 
antagonist, endeavored to overpower him by weight of 
learning and brilliancy of execution. He had read almost 
every single passage that was set, and to show that he 
had done so, wrote at the head of every translation paper 
he sent up the author's name and that of the particular 
book or play. The bit of Theophrastus which was set 
us on the last day he had by good fortune read over the 
very night before. As I was pretty well up in it myself, 
though my acquaintance had not been so recently re- 
newed, I felt no hesitation in glancing at his work since 
I did not wish to borrow from him. He was writing 
his notes in Latin, and getting up his paper exactly as 
if he were editing the extract. Of his Composition the 



S20 JJ'ive Years ^V^ wi English University. 

following may serve as a specimen. It is a translation 
of the lines by Aubrey de Vere, " Again those sounds 
sweep on," &c., quoted in the Appendix (Classical Tripos 
Papers, 1845), and is given exactly as he wrote it out in 
the Senate House, occupying less than an hour in the 
task. 

" Rursus murmur adest, adest, 
Impellens liquidis aera vocibus ; 

Fallor ? quo nimium brevis, 
Quo fugit magicse vocis anhelitus ? 

Rursus m.e mea som.nia, 
Hursus destituit me placitus furor, 

TJrbis non aliter suse 
Cum devota Deus moenia deserit, 

Quondam nubila vocibus 
Vibrant suavisionis quas aliquis piis, 

Nocturnis bibit auribus ; 
nie acclinis hum.o dum jacet, exuit 

Vox a^^r8e refluse moras, 
Castigatiqe gravis, mceret identidem. 

Non desiderio levi." 

It deserves to be enumerated among his claims that 
he wrote a beautiful hand, delicate as a woman's, and 
withal very legible. After all he was only bracketed 
Senior Classic, some errors of syntax in his Greek Iam- 
bics, and other inaccuracies, having brought him down to 
the level of his less learned and showy, but more safe 
competitor. 

He was very fond of English poetry, Somer allusion 
to the examination it was not possible to forego, but we 
soon disposed of the shop with our tea, and then read, 
criticized, and very generally talked over the poets of the 
new school — Shelley, Keats, Tennyson, Miss Barrett — 
for some hours, till, as I rose to go, somewhere about 
the witching hour, he stopped me with, " Now stay a 



Five Tears in mi English University. 321. 

little longer ; I have some capital brandy that was sent 
by a friend — an old parson in the country!''' 

" The " old parson in the country " was sufficient 
guarantee for the orthodoxy of the liquor, which indeed 
proved Avorthy of its clerical paternity. So we sat well 
into Monday morning, drinking grog and talking of all 
the poets in all the five or six languages that we knew 
more or less about. Such are a reading-man's relaxations 
after the intense examination work. 

The Classical examiners are not bound to declare the 
result of the Tripos on any specified day. They conse- 
quently take their time about it, getting up amica- 
ble little fights among themselves as to the comparative 
merits of different men. They are usually a month in 
deliberation, although the four Composition papers are 
the only ones which they all examine : each one is 
sole arbiter of marks on the paper and a half of transla- 
tion which he sets. Meanwhile some of the expectants 
have the additional amusement of going in for the Chan- 
cellor's Medals. On the present occasion but three can- 
didates presented themselves, and two of these were 
morally certain of the two medals beforehand. The 
rest of us had nothing to do but to worry ourselves 
looking over the papers, finding out mistakes, and spec- 
ulating on our chances, or else, more wisely, to leave the 
place, and forget the whole subject as far as possible. I 
went to London, saw various sights and acquaintances, 
and afterwards visited a friend who was then a 
private tutor at Eton, the opportunity being a good ex- 
cuse and occasion for what I had some time wished— a 
little personal insight and examination into an English 
Public School. 
41* 



822 Five Years in an Mnglish University. 



A VISIT TO ETO]!T. Ei^GLISH PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 

" A Parliamentary return of all that is taught at Eton during ten years of 
pupilage in the nineteenth century, ought (if any thing can) to surprise the 
public into some uneasiness on the subject." 

Edinbtjegh Revie-w, Jan., 1845. 

T is a singular spectacle for an American to see num- 
bers of youths eighteen or nineteen years old, who 
in his own country would call themselves and be called 
young men, leaders of fashionable society perhaps — go- 
ing about in boyish costume, and evidently in the statics 
of boys. What increases the singularity of the appear- 
ance is that the Englishman's physical development is 
more rapid than that of the American — of the Northern 
States, at least ; thus the Etonian of nineteen is as old 
in appearance as the New Yorker or Bostonian of twen- 
ty-one. They all wear white cravats and black beavers; 
caps are forbidden, otherwise there is no uniformity of 
costume, and the juvenile round jacket is as common as 
the manly coat upon strapping young fellows nearly six 
feet high. Still, however you may dress jDersons of that 
age, it is not possible to confine them entirely to the dis- 
cipline of boys ; the upper forms will walk out into the 
town of Windsor, and should one of them meet a tutor he 
takes refuge in a shop, the tutor, by a long established 
fiction, making believe not to see him. 

There are always several hundred boys at Eton ; at 
that period (1845) it numbered more than seven hundred. 
About one-tenth of these are Collegers. These Collegers 
are the nucleus of the whole system, and the only origi- 



Five Years in an English University. 323 

nal part of it, the paying i:)upils {oppidatis, town-boys) 
being, according to general belief, an after growth. 
They (the Collegers) are educated gratuitously, and such 
of them as have nearly but not quite reached the age of 
nineteen, when a vacancy in King's College, Cambridge, 
occurs, are elected Scholars there forthwith and provided 
for during life — or until marriage. 

The number of masters is but small in proportion to 
that of boys, nor is the average fairly distributed ; one 
master may have forty pupils under him. This is one of 
the most obvious defects of the system. Formerly, there 
were many private tutors, who might in some degree 
make up this deficiency ; but as these gentlemen were 
found in some instances to have too comfortable a time 
of it, regulations Avere made obliging them to keep the 
same hours at night with the boys, and in other respects 
circumscribing their liberties, in consequence of which 
their numbers rapidly diminished, and at this time there 
were but three, each attached to his particular boy. That 
Classics form the staple of education at Eton, is known 
to every one who has heard of the place ; it was, there- 
fore, matter of no small siirprise to me to be informed 
— and indeed to see with my own eyes — that the Class- 
ical course was of a very obsolete and defective descrip- 
tion, the text-books old-fashioned, chiefly selections, and 
those not always of the best authors or the best parts 
of them. Latin versification still flourishes ; it might be 
unjust to say that every thing else is sacrificed to it, but 
it is certain that other and less doubtful elements of 
Scholarship are somewhat neglected for it. Of Mathe- 
matics there is not a great deal to be said— for there is 
very little done. 

Passing to the more general branches of education, it 
is singular to find tio instruction tohateper given in JEng- 



324 Five Years in an English University. 

lish Grammar. But this singularity is not confined to 
Eton ; it extends to all the English Schools, public or 
private, that I am acquainted with. English Gi-ammar 
is not one of the branches of the English school curri- 
culum. When I mentioned this omission to my Eng- 
lish friends, they generally tm-ned it off with some mild 
joke about its being necessary for us in America to learn 
English Grammar at school, because English was a 
strange language to us ; but the peculiarity of their prac- 
tice seemed never to occur to them. I fancy it does not 
correspond with that of other nations. French Gram- 
mar is certainly studied, and with much care, in the schools 
of France. 

In Ancient History the boys were well read, and 
would have been in Modern, only that something was 
given them for it which Punch could hardly have carica- 
tured. Just at that time the Puseyites and Young Eng- 
land had become most rampant and wanton in their per- 
version of historic facts and extravagance of historic fan- 
cies, and Eton was not untouched by the prevailing epi- 
demic. I saw a sort of historical manual written by one 
of the under-masters (no friend of mine, thank Heaven !) 
which contained such utter absurdities, both in the pre- 
face and the body of the work, that I should hardly be 
believed were I to relate them. It is proper to say, 
however, that the book attracted so much unfavorable 
notice that the compiler was obliged to remove his most 
glaring mis-statements in a subsequent edition. 

The study of the Modern languages had received an 
impulse from some prizes instituted by Prince Albert, 
and was beginning to attract a tolerable share of atten- 
tion. 

My informant considered that the subject best taught 
was — what I should hardly have expected — Geography. 



Five Year's in an English University. 325 

It Avas not merely learned from books ; mucJ attention 
was paid to drawing and copying maps. 

As to the morality of the school, my friend's impres- 
sion was not the most favorable. One instance in par- 
ticular, which had recently occurred, made a strong im- 
pression upon him, and upon me when he related it. A 
boy. whom he knew very well, found a pencil-case and 
advertised it through the proper channel and authority. 
More than a hundred hoys applied for the article, and 
some of them from their descriptions were evidently 
making the wildest shots at it. With all due allowance 
for the juvenile propensity to lose pencils, one cannot 
avoid the conclusion that at least three-fourths of these 
youths were trying to get possession of what did not 
and could not belong to them. 

This brief notice of the great foundation of Eton, the 
school where the sons of the nobility are educated, does 
not present a very pleasant state of things. I can only 
say that my impressions have been set down according 
to my best recollection of them. Some things I noted 
with ray own eyes ; others may perhaps have been un- 
intentionally colored by my informant. He was a King's 
College, London, man, an Evangelical, and one of the 
Cambridge Apostles ; on every account, therefore, dis- 
posed to be very critical in his standard both of intel- 
lectual and moral training, and not all favorably biased 
towards Eton. At the same time, I did not rely on his 
opinion only. . Happening to know some of the Under- 
masters, truly excellent and religious men as well as good 
scholars, I drew from them indirectly that the moral con- 
dition of the boys was far from satisfactory. It is but 
just to say, however, that they did not allude to the fre- 
quency of gross vices, but rather to habitual careless- 
ness about truth, deception of teachers, tyranny of older 



326 Five Years in an English University. 

boys over younger (though the fagging system is allowed 
on all hands to be very much humanized), and other sins 
"which are apt to be prominently exhibited in large con- 
gregations of boys, and which Arnold in more than one 
place has so feelingly deplored. 

When, in writing this chapter a few months ago, I 
came to ai'range my knowledge and recollections of 
English Public Schools, and j)ut together the different 
impressions I had received from one quarter and another, 
it became evident that I still wanted considerable light 
on the subject. Instantly I wrote off to two friends, one 
an Eton man, and actually connected with Eton at the 
present time, the other a Shrewsbury man. Fellow of 
Trinity College, and making a name in the literary world. 
The nature of the inquiries which I put will be tolera- 
bly plain from the replies themselves, which I received 
by return of post, and have no hesitation in printing, as 
they contain nothing personal or which can possibly give 
offence to any one, and tell the story much better than 
I could. The Etonian shall have the precedence from 
the greater length and earnestness of his communication. 

- " My deak B. 

" Our whole number of boys is about six hundred. 
It has not fallen below this for eight years. Six years 
ago it was as high as seven hundred and seventy-seven. 
At present it is about six hundred and thirty. 

" The Scholars or Collegers are seventy. The founder 
evidently contemplated the accretion of pensioners, 
'juvenes commensales,' just like a College at Oxford or 
Cambridge. It is believed that there were ' oppidans,' 
or pensioners, almost at the beginning. * * * * 

" We have a Head Master, with twelve assistants, for 
the Upper School, which contains six hundred boys. 



Five Years in an English University. 327 

These are not equally divided. The Head Master has 
no more than thirty boys. The next two or three divi- 
sions seldom reach 40. But the tenth contains seventy- 
eight, and has ranged above 60 ever since Christmas. 
The lower school, a separate establishment contains at 
present about thirty boys; it used to contain from one 
hundred to one hundred and fifty in old times. They 
retain the whole staff, whether the ranks are full or not, 
i. e. the Lower Master (Magister Ostiarius, or '•usher^ 
you see the derivation with the French ' huissier ') and 
four assistants. So that we have eighteen regular Clas- 
ical Masters, wearing Academical dress, all graduates, 
with extra masters for languages, &c., quite enough. 

" No boy can enter the lower school after his thir- 
teenth, nor the upper school after his fourteenth year. 
The great mass of boys come at twelve and thirteen, 
No one, I think, ever comes to school under six, ', this 
only happens with residents ; seldom does a boy enter 
under nine. I am not aware of a minimum of juvenility. 
The lower school professes to be preparatory from the 
rudiments. I suppose a boy must be in trowsers and 
know how to read. 

" As to what a public school is, consult Sydney Smith 
in the Edinburgh for 1810. I do not accept his defini- 
tion as quite satisfactory. A public school as a pecu- 
liar institution of English society, is a place in which a 
boy is at once in a class under a master who acts for the 
head-master, and subject to a tutor who acts more spec- 
ially for the parent or guardian. There are but three 
schools that come under this definition — Harrow, Eton, 
Kugby. These three seem to me to be very similar to 
Oxford or Cambridge in the Middle Ages, in the period 
between the first institution of colleges and the decay of 
the University ' Schools.' As an undergraduate (say in 



328 Five Years in an English University. 

1500) got his chief teaching, and made his chief display 
of knowledge in jDublic with a Professor, whilst he pre- 
pared his work, cultivated his sj)eciality, and underwent 
discipline in a college, so an Eton, Harrow, or Rugby 
boy, attends the one school chapel, shows up exercises, 
is examined in his lessons according to fixed routine, 
contends for honors, takes degrees (what we call ' re- 
moves,' e. g. changing from lower boy to fifth form, from 
one who is fagged to one who fags), with {apud) the 
Head Master or his assistant, whilst at the same time he 
receives catechetical instruction in religion, prepares 
most of his lessons, and gets his exercises looked over, 
&c., with his tutor, whether he boards in his house or 
not. The tutor also corresponds with the parent, watches 
over money matters, and attends to the -r^poq b 'iKaarog 
TTEfvKe, superintending and guiding all those more option- 
al studies for which the school (^the University) gives 
leisure and encouragement. 

Sydney Smith wrote, perhaps, before tutors began to 
attempt much in this way, though even then there was 
some attention paid to individuals. 

" Eton is less symmetrical than the other two, in so 
far as she retains Dames' houses, cheaper than tutors' 
houses. About one hundred and thirty boys board with 
Dames, having tutors to whom they pay £10 or £20-a- 
year for tuition, paying the Head Master £6 a-year, and 
leaving him to pay his assistants. An assistant gets 
from the Head £44 a-year, working perhaps twenty-four 
hours a-week in class with seventy-five or seventy-eight 
boys. Then we live by our pupils. As we do each 
other's work, each boy gets what he wants, not caring 
how the money is distributed. 

" At Eton a boy changes his division and comes under 
a new Master every half year, retaining his tutor. The 



Five Years in an English University. 329 

tutor is not merely an agent for the parent, but the 
boy's natural defender and friend. * * At Eton you get 
much more help from your Tutor in preparing lessons 
and exercises than at Rugby. Rugby men who have 
lived years with us, and thoroughly studied our prac- 
tices, prefer our tutorial system, though they think our 
system inferior as regards the cultivation of the intellect. 
" It is this duality, this polarization between the pub- 
lic authorities and the more private or more Collegiate 
discipline, Avhich seems to me (not noAV for the first time) 
to constitute the differentia of a public school. It shows 
itself in this way — a boy does not look upon his tutor as 
a schoolmaster ; he is to him a gentleman whom he 
knows just as he knows his father's friends, whom he 
can ask to his father's house, from whom he claims hos- 
pitality as soon as he has left school, if he ever revisits 
Eton. Again, he is proud of the house he belongs to, as 
a man is of his College ; though in ci'icket and football 
clubs, in regular ' long boats,' and aquatic sweepstakes, 
in running and leaping races, he competes with the whole 
school, yet he belongs to a football club in the autumn, 
which includes the twenty or thirty boys boarding in his 
own house, and thus matches are made between houses 
as between colleges, and his society is found chiefly in 
his own house, though not exclusively (much less in sum- 
mer than in winter). Again, the school examinations are 
conducted in a more professional or business way than 
the private tuition — no great regard for peculiarities of 
character, for moral superiority, etc. ; a boy is plucked 
just as at Oxford if he falls short of the minimum, from 
whatever reason ; on the other hand, if he gets into a 
scrape, his tutor is applied to for his character, and can 
generally, if he thinks it right, extricate him, and set 
him right in the eyes of a Master who may have thought 
ill of him. * * * * 



330 Five Years in an English University. 

" What Sydney Smith says of its roughness, its sim- 
ilarity to a forest or to a savage life, is at present almost 
entirely inapplicable to Eton, and, I believe, to Harrow. 
Kugby is rougher — the boys in a tutor's house are more 
left to self-government. 

" Shrewsbury is one of the many endowed grammar- 
schools founded in or soon after the reign of Edward 
VI. Its only claim to jDublicity is, that for one genera- 
tion it drew pupils from all parts of England ; whereas 
most grammar-schools, such as Bury St. Edmonds^ 
Tiverton (in Devonshire), Oakham and Teppingham in 
Rutland, draw boys from their own localities. A school 
like Shrewsbm-y flom'ishes only when very well officered, 
unless it has a very rich endowment, plenty of Scholar- 
ships to give away at the Universities, as Merchant Tay- 
lors' sends men to St. John's College, Oxford. * * * * 

'■^Repton, I believe, differs from Shrewsbury only in 
being less famous. It may become famous and so far 
public by achieving conspicuous success at Oxford and 
Cambridge, but not so famous as Shrewsbury was twen- 
ty years ago, because it has now so many competitors. 
Shrewsbury grew fast, whilst Eton and Harrow were 
vegetating slowly — before Rugby arose — before any 
other old grammar-school bestirred itself 

" It is customary to reckon 'Winchester and West- 
viinster as public schools. Every year at Lord's cricket- 
ground, which is the ground of the Marylebone Club 
and the Newmarket of cricket, a week is given up to the 
* Public School Matches.' * * * * 

" At Cambridge we Etonians are charged with levity, 
and with that kind of impudence which shows itself in 
ten Eton men talking Etonica at a party without caring 
for what is due to the other four men present. 

" Tlie two great evils of the place, which are now at- 



Five Years in an English University. 331 

tracting every one's attention, are these : (1.) Mathemat- 
ics are not compulsory and general; (2.) There is too 
much money spent by the boys, too much self-indulg- 
ence. * * * * And we ought to remodel our chapel 
sei'vice, so as to have a shoi't service every day, and not 
school-days without prayer and holidays with too much 
of it. Finally, we ought to have fewer holidays. * * * * 

" The real reason for sending a boy to Eton is that 
he will there find, not the best teaching nor the best dis- 
cipline, but the best society. I suppose, however, that 
Harrow is just as good in this respect, or very nearly so. 
The only difference is that they have not so large an ad- 
mixture of poor gentlemen's sons. They have nothing 
in lieu of our seventy Collegers (who, being elected by 
merit, are really picked boys, the competition being very 
keen, fifty candidates for ten vacancies every year), and 
the candidates for College, and other frugal boys, living 
at Dames' houses. 

" There has been an alarm aboiit Eton being a Puseyiti- 
cal school. Harrow has gained thereby, having a con- 
trary reputation. The truth is that neither school has 
any distinctive religious character, any more than the 
London Clubs or the English aristocracy generally. Both 
schools, I believe, fairly represent English society in its 
good and its evil. * * * * 

" Perhaps I ought to tell you that a boy in a tutor's 
house, at Eton, costs his father altogether, including all 
his personal expenses, such as clothes, journeys, pocket- 
money, medicine, on an average not less than £200 a 
year. Many boys, however, spend £30 a year in pocket- 
money, some £50. * * * * 

" Yours, sincerely, 

" W. J." 

Some passages in the above letter I have been obliged 



332 Five Years in an English University. 

to omit, as their tone of eulogy, however sincere on the 
writer's part, might seem extravagant to a reader not 
under the influence of similar feelings. My Shrewsbury 
friend has treated the same subject in a somewhat light- 
er vein, and his views do not precisely correspond with 
those of the Etonian. 

" My dear B., 

" The term ' Public School,' in its proper sense, is 
applied to all schools which have an endowment for the 
Master, and where the education is free, or nearly so, 
for the boys. The term is a translation of ' libera schola,' 
about the meaning of which there has been a good deal 
of discussion lately in the Court of Chancery. The 
Head-Mastership is in the gift of Trustees, whose choice 
is limited by charter to an M. A., B. D., or D. D., of Ox- 
ford or Cambridge. These trustees are country gentle- 
men, or burgesses, who don't see the use of Latin and 
Greek, and want to turn the foundation mto a commer- 
cial school, on which point they join issue with the Head- 
master. They get a dictionary, look out ' libera,' and 
find that it means free. The Head-master maintains 
that it means liberal, and assumes that a liberal education 
excludes the three JRi's, and all that could fit a man for 
standing behind a counter. Adhuc sub judice lis est, 
and as the judex is the Lord Chancellor, it is likely to 
remain under him till it is addled. 

" Li common jDarlance ' Public School ' is only apjDlied 
to the larger endowed schools. Thus, there is a small 
Grammar-school with an endowment of fifty merks per 
annum, at Boughton cum Bangaway ; no one calls it a 
Public School : suppose a lease falls in, and the revenue 
becomes £3,000 instead of £33, 6, 8d., a good scholar 



Five Years in a7i English ITiiiversity. 333 

gets the Headship, boys come by hundreds, and call 
themselves ' Public School men ' 7iem. con. 

" I have heard Winchester and Eton men maintain 
that the term ' Public School ' ought only to be applied 
to those two foundations which have a College, or close 
and free school distinct from the open and costly school 
Tzaal KoivT/v kvanoTicai xpviio.Ta (you remember the Collegers 
and Oppidans at Eton), and also a College at the Uni- 
versity appropriate to them, New College and King's. 
But no one recognizes this limitation. Shrewsbury is a 
public school in precisely the same sense as Harrow or 
Rugby, though the numbers are not so great nor the en- 
dowment so large. It acquh-ed what celebrity it has, 
first under Dr. Butler (afterwards Bishop of Lichfield), 
and secondly, under Benjamin Kennedy, though the 
numbers are much diminished. 

" It was founded, like many others, by Edward VI. 
out of the spoils of the Monasteries. I don't see how 
Repton can be called a private school, being endowed ; 
miless one calls it so as a mark of contempt for its scanty 
numbers. In all old towns (with very rare exceptions) 
are to be found endowed schools, generally connected 
with the munici]Dality when there is one, not at all with 
the parochial system. Most of these schools are in a 
state of effeteness for want of the sinews of learning — 
money. Very often the founders left an estate to the 
borough magistrates, charged with a fixed payment to 
the Master of the school, fifty merks a year say, which 
was a handsome sum three hundred years ago, but is 
hardly enough to find one in cigars now-a-days. 

" Suits have been set on foot in some cases to com- 
pel the holders of the estate to comply with the spirit 
of the Founder's will, and j^ay as large a proportion of 
the rent as fifty merks was then. This has occurred at 
Ludlow. 



334 Five Years in an English TInwersity. 

" Sometimes the Dean and Chapter have been made 
patrons of the school, and have played the same dodge, 

e. g. at Rochester, where W , one of our Fellows, 

Head-master of the school, is carrying on a guerre d 
mort with the Cathedral dignitaries. There was a de- 
bate about it in the House lately. 

" Eton and Westminster are both Colleges, though 
at Eton there is a School besides. The reason of their 
being coupled together is, I suppose, the old custom of 
rowing matches on the Thames, from which, both at 
Oxford and Cambridge, the two rivals join and form 
boating-clubs — you remember the 'Third Trinity.' 

" James I. wanted to make Trinity College the same 
appendage to Westminster that King's is to Eton, or 
New College to Winchester; but some College Hamp- 
den resisted and defeated him. * * * * 
" Ever yours, truly, 

" W. G. C." 

I make no-attempt to reconcile any contradictions 
in the three different accounts now laid before the read- 
er, but merely present them, and leave him to judge for 
himself It is certain, however, that Eton, which has 
not been out of fashion for a hundred and fifty years, 
stands pretty nearly " at the top of the tree." The other 
schools differ very much in reputation, and in the char- 
acteristics of their pupils, as observable at the University. 

Westminster was once the Court School, and for a 
long time rivalled Eton, but is now in a terrible state 
of decay. The position of the school in the heart of a 
great city had doubtless something to do with corrupt- 
ing the boys' morals, but would not entirely account for 
their low and ungentlemanly habits ; nor could their 
general ignorance of everything but vice be attributed 



Five Years in an English University. 335 

to any other cause than gross neglect on the part of 
those who had the control over them. Even the West- 
minster Collegers who were annually elected to the 
three close Scholarships at Trinity, and who might rea- 
sonably be expected to present the best specimens of 
the school, rarely did anything to distinguish themselves 
in the legitimate pursuits of the University. 

Winchester has now less than two hundred pupils. 
Few of these come to Cambridge. They have a College 
of their own at Oxford (New College), which stands in 
the same relation to them that King's College, Cam- 
bridge, does to Eton, and which naturally takes their best 
men. A friend of mine who professed to know some- 
thing about Winchester summed up his opinion of it in 
this sweeping sentence, that it was " stationary, illiberal, 
rough, coarse, and limited." 

Havroio had the reputation of being a great place 
for the quasi-aristocracy — the sons of rich commoners — ■ 
as Eton is for the sons of Noblemen. The Harrow men 
at Cambridge in my time were usually unfortunate, 
starting with a good reputation and breaking down in 
the long run. When Frederick Peel missed his Schol- 
arship he was supposed to be going the same way, but 
he broke the charm by his First Class in the Tripos. 

B.iighy is interesting from its association with the 
name of Arnold. (He died in 184:2, and many of his 
last " Sixth Form " were my contemporaries or nearly 
so at Cambridge). The Rugby men were in general 
less brilliant and quick than the Etonians, good sound 
scholars, but not remarkably showy and striking ; the 
Kugby exhibitioner at Trinity was usually in the First 
Class of the Tripos, but not very high on it. But they 
were men of great weight and character; they seemed 
to have been really taught to think on ethical as well as 



336 Five Years in an English University. 

purely intellectual subjects better than any set of young 
men I ever knew; they had better grounds for their be- 
lief, and always appeared to have looked into the reason 
of Avhat they said or did, and to go back to first princi- 
ples. Their veneration for Arnold's memory was un- 
bounded ; they spoke of his loss as a personal calamity, 
as one might speak of a near relative's death ; and you 
could always recognise a Rugby man's room by the por- 
trait conspicuously suspended in it. It was sometimes 
objected that the influence exerted by Arnold over the 
minds of his pupils had been too great — that it destroyed 
their originality and self-dependence. This was a com- 
mon saying of the Apostles ; I do not think it evinced their 
usual discrimination. Surely the liberal, independent, no- 
party nature of Arnold's mental and moral constitution, 
which prevented him from ever thoroughly acting with 
any side in politics, and made the Whigs afraid to give 
him a Bishopric, could not impress on the minds of his 
scholars any blind partisan bias in politics or religion, 
such as a violent Puseyite, or Young Englander, or Cal- 
vinist, or Republican might have done. What he did 
impress ujDon his pupils was a love of truth, a reverence 
for reverend things, a philosoi^hic habit of investigating 
principles, which tended to give them the reality of that 
" earnestness " which some of their despisers only pre- 
tended to possess or fancied they were possessing. 

Shrewsbury, of which we have had occasion to make 
frequent mention, is one of the very first schools that a 
Freshman hears of in connexion with this Prize or that 
Scholarship. Even Eton does not send up such a pro- 
portion of the Cambridge Classics — in fact I doubt if 
any three schools together do, Eton included. The 
Shrewsbury men at Cambridge had a reputation for two 
things particularly, writing Greek Iambics and playing 



Five Years in an English University. 337 

whist ; but their general line was minute accuracy of 
Scholarship.* It may be inferred from this that they ex- 
celled in Greek rather than Latin, and their precision in 
Greek syntax was carried out to a refinement and min- 
uteness hardly paralleled even in Law or Mathematics. 
In most things they displayed a hard and subtle acute- 
ness, such as one is accustomed to deem a national char- 
acteristic of Scots rather than Englishmen : this showed 
itself in their very relaxations. Whist, I have 'said, was 
their favorite amusement, and they played it purely for 
amusement; the few shillings at stake could have had 
little to do with the interest displayed. I often watched 
a table or two of Shrewsbury men before and after sup- 
per, and it was singular to see such youths playing near- 
ly as scientifically and quite as silently as the oldest and 
most experienced hands, never making a gesture of im- 
patience or exultation, or opening their mouths except 
during the deals. 

It was said, and with reason, that they crammed too 
much for the one object of the Classical Tripos, and de- 
voted too much time to making themselves machines for 
the Greek Iambics. For instance, they read too little 
Homer at school through fear of becoming too familiar 
with Heroic Greek to the injury of their Attic. It was 
owing to this Homeric deficiency and their not being 
quite up to some of the other schools in Latin verse, that 
a Shrewsbury candidate for the Bell Scholarship was 
usually unsuccessful, while he as usually beat one or 
both of the Bell Scholars in the Classical Tripos. Their 
accurate habits were of great service to them in Mathe- 
matics ; they seldom read for high degrees, liut were 

* It was said of a Shrewsbury man who was Senior Classic in 
my time, that he had never been known to make a mistake in a 
Classical paper during his whole University career. 

15 



338 Five Years in an English University. 

always pretty safe to get through or be Senior Optim^s 
as their Classical prospects required. Apart from this 
necessary digression they in most cases confined them- 
selves vigorously to their Classical studies, but after the 
Degree and the Tripos they expanded and developed 
with great rapidity, taking in a variety of miscellaneous 
knowledge, and displaying a number of qualities and ca- 
pabilities for which one would not have been disposed 
to give them credit previously. They afforded a most 
striking example of what is a common feature in Eng- 
lish education, a mental development held in abeyance 
and working unseen under the pressure of study, which 
starts out into full life on the removal of the pressure. 

I have been thus particular in speaking of Shrews- 
bury, because the peculiar style of scholarship which 
originated there has invaded and pervaded that of Cam- 
bridge, where Latin Composition and "cram" have 
yielded the first place to Greek Composition and meta- 
physical syntax — in brief, Greek has got the better of 
Latin, and language of matter. 

The King Edward VI. School^ Birmingham^ had a 
great reputation which began within late years, iii fact 
after I entered the University. In five years it sent up 
five scholars of the highest order, of whom all were 
Fellows of Trinity, four Senior Classics (alone or brack- 
eted) and two Double Firsts, besides some high Wrang- 
lers, for Mathematics as well as Classics were well at- 
tended to there. They were mostly what would be called 
slashing men, who could do a great deal and do it well, 
though there was considerable variety among them, little 
uniformity of method and much originality. Thus the 
two candidates for the head of the Tripos in our year 
whom I have already mentioned as very different in their 
style and forte, were from the Birmingham school. 



Five Years in an English University. 339 

Mejjton, where Peile the editor of ^schylus is Head- 
Master, though a small school, was sending some very- 
good men to Cambridge a few years ago. 

While speaking of English schools it would be im- 
just to pass over one immortalized by the quaint genius 
of Lamb, and in which the circumstance that one of my 
most intimate and valued friends was educated at it, 
often made me feel something like a personal interest — ■ 
Christ's Hospital^i otherwise known as the JBlue Coat 
School. It is i^urely a charitable establishment ; the pu- 
pils have retained their distinctive dress (a blue gown, 
yellow leggings, and no hat) ever since its foundation, 
and are obliged to wear it continuously even in vacation 
time, and when absent from London. This school has 
several very good Exhibitions * at different Cambridge 
Colleges, some of them worth as much as £100 a-year; 
these are frequently filled by crack men, both in Classics 
and Mathematics — more frequently the former. This 
may be deemed no wonder when the worldly prospects 
of these youths depended so entirely for a favorable 
start on their academic success. It was more surprising 
to find in them a great deal of genei'al knowledge, a love 
of poetry, refined taste, and often a touch of romance in 
their characters, altogether coming up to one's ideal of 
the poor scholar, such as is oftener met with in novels 
than in real life. There was a distinctive peculiarity in 
their external appearance by which they were easily re- 
cognised. Closely cropi^ed hair constituted a part of the 
school regulation costume ; on their emancipation into 

* An Exhibition is sometMng like a College Scholarsliip in tlie 
gift of a particular school, but the Exhibitioner has no privileges 
beyond the pecuniary emolument, and it does not interfere with 
his sitting for an ordinary Scholarship. 



340 Five Years in an English University. 

the University tlaey let their locks grow to the longest 
extent permitted by the usages of English civilization. 

The reader may have observed that, with one or two 
exceptions, the schools enumerated are distinguished for 
Classics alone, and he may ask where the Mathematicians 
are trained. They certainly do not, as a general rule, 
come from the Public Schools. Many of them are fitted 
in private ; some of those who enter at the Small Col- 
leges are very deficient in Classics, nor do they read any 
at the University except their First- Year College sub- 
jects and Little-Go authors. Many come from King''s 
College, London. This is the Established Church part 
of the London University, in opposition to University 
College. The students attend like scholars at a day- 
school, or the students of Columbia College ; it is some- 
what as if Columbia should prepare pupils for Yale or 
Harvard. Many of the King's College, London, men, 
are capital scholars, though not being equal to the Pub- 
lic School men in Composition, they seldom take the 
very highest places on the Tripos ; still they had one 
Senior and one Second Medalist during the interval be- 
tween 1839 and 1849. La Mathematics they were very 
successful, and turned out a number of high Wranglers ; 
they had the Senior Wrangler twice while I was at the 
University. Professor De Morgan is the great Mathe- 
matical coach there, and it is probably the only place 
where Mathematicians enjoy a preparatory drill in search- 
ing written examinations, corresponding to that of the 
Classical men at the Public Schools, and as similar as 
theirs to what both have to experience in their Univer- 
sity course. 

The " Colleges " now founding all over England, e. g. 
at Brighton, Marlborough, Liverpool, Birkenhead, Fleet- 
wood, are great schools, but not at all like Eton or Har- 



Five Y~ears in an English University. 341 

row, or any of the old public schools, great or small, any- 
more than the London University is like Oxford or Cam- 
bridge. In some respects they have the advantage, 
being cheaj^er, more systematic, and attending better to 
Mathematical studies. 

[Cheltenham has one of these Colleges, and an excel- 
lent place of education I believe it to be, though any- 
thing but a "swell" school. I remained nearly the 
whole of two winters in the town, partly for the pui-- 
pose of examining the system and working of this " col- 
lege." There are two departments (with more than 
three hundred pupils in each, to the best of my recollec- 
tion), one classical and the other " modern " that is, scien- 
tific and military. The latter is the best and best known, 
but both are good. As is usually the case in Eng- 
land, the students have apparently very little to do, but 
that little is most thoroughly got up.] 

Durham University, which was established to supply 
a cheaper place of education for North-Country clergy- 
men than the two old Universities, is still in its infancy, 
and one seldom hears much about it. I believe it an- 
swers its purpose jDretty well. 

While speaking of English preparatory places of ed- 
ucation, it may be well to say a word of the Scotch Uni- 
versities, respecting which some curiosity is occasionally 
manifested by our countrymen. I knew several Cantabs 
(North- Country men* and Scotchmen) who had been at 
Glasgow, which they regarded as a preparatory school. 
From their report I should imagine that the Scotch 
Universities occupied an intermediate position between 
ours and the English in point of classical and rhetoi'ical 
attainments, age of pupils, and soundness and variety of 

* I. e. from the nortliem counties of England. 



342 Five Years in an English University. 

studies. There are some very good schools in Scot- 
land, one in particular (though I cannot now recall the 
name and locality of it), which sends a number of good 
men to Cambridge and Oxford ; but though taking good 
places, they did not come up to the English standard of 
the highest excellence in scholarship. From what I know 
of Trinity College, Dublin, I should be inclined to say 
the same of it as of the Scotch Universities. Some of its 
graduates, indeed, will tell you that the standard of the 
Fellowships and other chief Honors there is higher than 
that of any academical institution in the world (I have 
seen this assertion publicly in print) ; but undervaluing 
himself is not an Irishman's fault. I owe my " rudi- 
ments" to a Trin. Coll. Dub. man, and am not disposed 
to speak lightly of the classical acquirements of its 
members, but truth compels me to say that their Greek 
does not appear to be of the first water. The Cantabs 
used to say of them that they were always writing 
Greek verses in some magazine, and never printed a copy 
which did now show a fundamental ignorance of the 
laws of syntax and prosody. It is a peculiarity of this 
institution that the Felloios are allowed to marry, prob- 
ably by way of asserting a Protestant principle. 



Five Years in an English University. 343 



BEIKG EXTmGUISHED. 

XaXeTTGJf (Jipaleig. — Thuctd. Lib. iv. 
Grievously upset.— Lecturee's Tkanslation. 

DURING the week spent at Eton, it was expected 
that the result of the Tripos would be declared i 
but the absence of an examiner put it off for a week 
longer. More fidget and more speculating. After my 
mishaps in Greek Prose and Latin Verse, I ought to 
have made up my mind to die decently, but then I was 
conscious of having sent up a rather neat bit of prose, 
and Iambics that were a little above my average — so 
said a friend to whom I showed the rough copy. Re- 
examination of the translation papers disclosed some 
glaring mistakes, but every one makes mistakes, except 
now and then a Shrewsbury man. The betting was 
against me, but there was some money on me even. 
The examiners were more taciturn than usual and let 
nothing be suspected beforehand. The only generally 
received rumor was that Frederick Peel (who had been 
working like three horses all the Long) was coming up 
wonderfully and going to be the successful outsider of 
the year ; and this rested more on the firm conviction 
and positive assertions of his coach than on anything 
that had leaked out. 

At last it was unofiicially announced that the Tripos 
would be out on the morrow. All that night I sat up play- 
ing whist with two or three interested parties, and two 
or three not interested, who had benevolently sacrificed 
themselves for the occasion. Our host was a good-na- 



344 Five Years in an English University. 

tured Mathematician, still taking it easy after his suc- 
cessful exertions to obtain a place among the first twenty 
Wranglers. We played straight on from 10 P. M. till 6 
A. M., only stopping to put coal on the fire from a dimin- 
utive scuttle, or champagne into ourselves from a large 
pewter mug.* Then we went to dress, for the daily 
clean shirt is part of an Englishman's religion, and after 
that to chapel. Most of the competitors were there, and 
a very pale, uneasy, used-up set we looked. I was par- 
ticularly struck with the appearance of one young man 
of Irish extraction, a hard student, but not naturally 
clever, who finally came out third Classic and Second 
Medalist. He was ghastly pale and seemed hardly able 
to stand. Poor fellow ! he had another source of anxiety 
that we knew not of. For some time he had been on the 
high road to Rome — very secretly — and was then prac- 
tising various ascetic acts of devotion and penance. 
About a year after he went openly over to the enemy, 
leaving an Orange father to bewail his untimely fate. 

After chapel, to breakfast with what appetite I might, 
and then to billiards — anything to pass away the morn- 
ing. It was nearly the dinner hour when I strolled 
down, for the third or fourth time, in the direction of 
the g^(as^- University Bookseller's, where the Tripos 
list was always posted. A great crowd surrounded the 
shop as was customary on such occasions ; a Trinity man 
whom I knew was emerging from it. " Where am I ? " 
" Second in the Second Class." 

On hearing this double mediocrity of position as- 
signed me, I had need of all my philosophy. Though 

* The big, glass-bottomed pewter mug is an article of furniture 
to be found on almost every Cantab's premises. Its primary and 
ordinary use is for imbibing beer ; on unceremonious occasions it 
serves for the reception of any potable fluid. 



Five Years in an English University. 345 

from the first the limited time I was able to read had 
made the chances greatly against me, and other things 
had combined to let me down gradually, I certainly was 
considerably sold by the final result — indeed, I don't 
know if I ever was as much so before or since. How- 
ever, I disguised my mortification, and pushed my way 
in. The first acquaintance I saw was a Small Colleger, 
who had last year taken two of the Browne's Medals, 
the Greek and Latin Odes, beating our best Trinity men, 
and whose name was now just above mine, leading oflT 
the Second Class. He was standing up like Miss Bar- 
rett's " statue thunder-struck," overwhelmed by the 
shock, but expressing no emotion. When he caught 
sight of me, his feelings first found vent at the presence 
of one so nearly in the same predicament, and he broke 
out with " I do think they might have drawn the line a 
little lower ! " 

All the men of the year who had taken University 
Prizes (except one imfortunate " gulfed " in Mathemat- 
ics) were in the Second Class, namely, the Small Col- 
leger aforesaid, myself, and my quondam Methodist 
friend, who had contributed so much to the introduction 
of sherry-cobblers. One of the examiners afterwards 
told me that all this Second Class (twelve out of twenty- 
four — two men were not placed) lay very close together, 
so that there was but little difference between the first 
and last man in it. Peel had leaped the gap, and was 
the last man of the six who composed the First Class. 

If inclined to take refuge in the proverbial consola- 
tion of misery, I had certainly company enough. Not 
only had every man in the Second Class cherished some 
hope of a First, but one of the aspirants to that honor 
had dropped into the Third. Such accidents are not un- 
common with Double men, who, in working up their 
15* 



346 Five Years iti an English University. 

Mathematics the last year, are apt to let their Classics 
go down. 

In one resi^ect the standard of the Classical Tripos 
is higher than that of the Mathematical ; more knowl- 
edge, both positively" and comparatively speaking, is re. 
quired for the lower places. The first man of the Third 
Class approaches much nearer to a Classic than the first 
Junior Optim6 does to a Mathematician, and his marks 
bear a much larger proportion to the Senior Classic's 
than the other's do to the Senior Wrangler's. The same 
difference extends throughout ; the last man of the First 
Class is much better in his line than the last Wrangler 
in his ,' and the Small Colleges, which give their Fellow- 
ships according to the Degrees, show this by requiring 
a candidate to be in the First Class of the Tripos, or — • 
not merely a Wrangler, but — among the first fifteen or 
twenty Wranglers, thus putting the First Class in Class- 
ics and the first half of the First Class in Mathematics 
on an equality. 

I have said that for an unmathematical man it re- 
quires a good deal of honest work to get a place any- 
where on the Mathematical Tripos. I conclude this 
chapter by saying that to take even a good Second in 
Classics, one must, as a general rule, have read a large 
quantity, and be able to display a considerable knowl- 
edge of the Ancient Languages. No one knows how 
hard a First Class is to obtain, unless he has either just 
got it or just missed it. 



Five Years in an English University. 347 



READING FOR A TRINITY FELLOWSHIP. 

"It was such as literary society ought to be, composed of men of real 
learning ; of friends confiding ia the mutual esteem entertained by all, undis- 
turbed by ambitious quacks or impudent pretenders." — Griffin's Remains. 

SELL or no sell, the affair was definitely settled. 
"All the king's money and all the king's men" 
could not give me the chance over again. The first ef- 
fect of my disappointment was that it made me resolve 
to leave Cambridge at once. I packed up my books — • 
a couple of trunks contained with ease the rest of my 
effects — sent them in charge to a bookseller, and waited 
on our College tutor to resign my Scholarship. He re- 
fused to present my resignation, and begged me to wait 
awhile, intimating his expectation that I would stay and 
read for a Fellowship, and his belief that there were 
not more than four men in the year who stood a better 
chance (there were ultimately but four FelloAvs out of 
our year). After my Classical degree, this seemed a 
mere compliment and facon de parler ; still, as there 
was no pressing necessity for my resignation, I consent- 
ed to withdraw it, and went off on a fortnight's run 
through Belgium and France. Before the fortnight was 
over, my feelings underwent a change. The first im- 
pulse passed away, and I found myself attracted back to 
the old place. Of a Fellowship I had the faintest possi- 
ble chance not worth taking into account, but the read- 
ing for one would be profitable and not unamusing ; the 
pursuit and acquisition of learning had become a pleas- 
ure to me ; I had formed some very agreeable friend- 



348 Five Years in an JEnglish University. 

ships with men whose professional occupations would 
retain them at the University ; I was not in sufficiently 
strong health to travel to the best advantage, and could 
recruit better during the coming season at home (which 
Cambridge had now been to me for three years and 
more) than elsewhere. So, on the whole, I resolved to 
return thither, for a while, at least, as a Bachelor. 

The principal business of a Trinity Bachelor Scholar 
in residence (no Bachelors, except Scholars and Fellow- 
Commoners, are allowed to retain their rooms in Col- 
lege beyond the term subsequent to that in which they 
take their degree) is reading for a Fellowship. The 
M.A. incepts in about three years and two months from 
the time of taking his first degree, though he does not 
become 2k fall M.A. till the July following — three years 
and a half in all. The Fellowship Examination is held 
in October, so that a candidate has three chances during 
his Bachelorship. Success on the first trial is rare, ex- 
cept in the case of a Senior Wrangler, or high Double 
First. A Senior Classic, unless a high Wrangler also, is 
seldom chosen the first time. This happens not from the 
preponderance of Mathematics in the examination (for 
the reverse is the case), but because a Trinity Senior 
Wrangler is usually a very superior man generally, not 
behind-hand in Classics, and often first, or among the 
first, on the Metaphysical paper. 

The Examination consists of Classics, Mathematics, 
and a number of subjects conveniently comprehended 
under the title of Metaphysics. 

The Classical Examination nearly resembles that of 
the Classical Tripos. The Composition is about the 
same in amount, but the Translation papers are only 
three in number, two Greek and one Latin ; and there is 
a long paper of general questions in Ancient History, 



Five Years in an English University. 349 

Antiquities, Philology, Civil Law, etc. — a " cram. " paper 
in short. One extract fi-om the Greek verse paper is to 
be translated into English verse. Under these circum- 
stances, a man who has taken a high Classical degree 
rather seeks to review and polish up than enlarge his 
reading; but a Mathematician, especially if he has come 
to the University tolerably well prepared in Classics, and 
has temporarily neglected them to read Mathematics for 
his Degree, will often extend his knowledge of Greek and 
Latin considerably. A Mathematician very deficient in 
Classics stands little chance, unless he be first-rate indeed 
in his branch, and also very good on the Metaphysical 
paper. I imagine Classics weigh at least as much as the 
other two together. 

There are only two Mathematical paj)ers, and these 
consist almost entirely of high questions ; what a Junior 
Op. or low Senior Op. can do in them amounts to noth- 
ing, and the Classical men usually cut them entirely. 

The third branch of the examination comprises sev- 
eral subjects more or less connected among themselves. 

1st. The History of Metaphysics. I say the History 
of Metaphysics, because an explanation of the theories 
of difierent schools rather than a support of any partic- 
ular one is expected. 

2d. Moral Philosoi^hy, considered not only in an his- 
torical, but also in a practical and, so to speak, polemical 
point of view. 

3d. Political Economy, considered, like Metaphysics, 
rather in an historical than a partisan light. 

4th. International Law. 

5th. General Philology. 

It is possible that questions are sometimes set on this 
paper not strictly reducible to any of the above heads. 
It intentionally covers a great deal of groimd, one of its 



350 Five Years in mi English University. 

objects being to bring out clever men and men of gen- 
eral and, at the same time, deep reading beyond the im- 
mediate sphere of Classical and Mathematical studies. 
Except in Moral Philosophy, there is no preferred class 
of opinions. In Ethics, the dominant school was anti- 
JPaley — that of the independent moralists^ as they were 
called at Cambridge, among whom Butler occupies a 
high rank, and Whewell, as one of his interpreters, no 
contemptible one. No particular opinions being pre- 
scribed in the other subjects, there are of course no par- 
ticular text-books — no substantially similar courses of 
reading for all candidates. The only works which can 
come under this category are. Dr. Whewell's History 
and Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, and Moral 
Philosophy, including Polity. His double position as 
Professor of Casuistry in the University, and Master of 
the College, has procured him this distinction, and you 
may always be sure of finding several questions set from 
his books. 

In general the Greeh and English authors are those 
most attended to. Plato and Aristotle, in their ethical, 
metaphysical, and political speculations, come in for a 
large share of attention; and with them, consequently, 
their historians and commentators, particularly Hitter. 
Cudworth is a favorite author. Mill's Logic became a 
standard work immediately on its publication. The 
older Scotch Metaphysicians are not in high repute. 
Cousin is read to some extent ; Comte, I fancy, not much. 
The German Transcendentalists are not very deeply 
dipped into ; most men were afraid of them. The Trin- 
ity receipt for getting up Kant was, " read the first forty 
pages of the ' Kritik ' and the indexP There are gen- 
erally two or three men who acquit themselves very 
stylishly on this paper, and cover a great extent oi 



Five Years in an English University. 351 

ground in the three or four hours allotted to it. An 
acquaintance of mine, who stood first in Metaphysics, 
and gained his Fellowship by it, confined himself chiefly 
to one question, an ethical one — in discussing which, he 
took up and answered, piece by piece, a recent article in 
the Edinburgh which had attracted his attention. Prob- 
ably the paper which he sent in would have made a re- 
spectable pendant both for quantity and quality to that 
which had suggested it. Another man, who was second 
in the same examination, wrote up not only all the paper, 
but all the ink within his reach. 

The average age of taking the B.A. may be set down 
at twenty-two years and three months, so that a Trinity 
man usually borders upon twenty-five when he attains 
the dignity of Fellow. The Fellowships are tenable 
for seven years from the time of taking the M. A. to such 
of the Fellows as do not go into Orders ; those Avho do, 
may hold them till death or matrimony. For a Barris- 
ter this seven years' Fellowship is just the thing, as it 
gives him a support (£200 a year) long enough to start 
him in his profession, and carry him past thirty, by which 
time he has usually begun to do something if he ever 
means to, nor are the two or three years spent in pro- 
curing it by any means wasted, the training being in 
many respects calculated to fit him for his vocation. 

The number of vacancies varies from three to eight, 
averaging five, so that about one of three Scholars be- 
comes a Fellow. All the Scholars, however, are not 
candidates to the end. Some never feel warranted in 
going in at all; others go in the first year and then 
give up. 

The majority of candidates take pupils. This is con- 
sidered, when a man has (/ooc? pupils (and with a good De- 
gree he can exercise some choice in the matter) rather a 



352 Five Tears in an English University. 

help than a hindrance. Sometimes a Bachelor who has set 
his heart on being a Fellow, continues to read with his 
private tutor, but this is considered infra dig., and sel- 
dom practised. Tutors have been known to refuse such 
applications. A modified form of coaching somewhat 
more common is where two friends assist each other re- 
ciprocally. But in general the Bachelor is expected to 
rely on himself. 

I remained at Cambridge nearly the whole summer 
of ] 845, a capital specimen of an English summer, for it 
rained every day without exception, and my daily ride 
combined the additional advantage of a shower-bath. 
My amateur Mathematical coach, who was now making 
his last spirt for a Fellowship, used to accompany me on 
these excursions, and we always expected the ducking 
as a matter of course, and prepared ourselves accord- 
ingly. A Jew would not have given ten shillings ster- 
ling for both our wardrobes. My studies during this 
time were a great amusement as well as occupation. 
Into the Metaphysics jjroper I did not go far, in fact all 
my performance in that line was to read three or four 
hundred pages of Mill's Logic. This was chiefly owing 
to my curiosity to finish some of the works of Plato and 
Aristotle, which I had begun the previous summer — the 
Jiepublic,ihe Nicomachean Ethics,the Politics — and these 
books being read not merely for the language, but with 
more attention to the subject-matter than if they had 
been got up merely for Tripos purposes, looked indi- 
rectly towards the Metaphysical course. In the after- 
noon and evening I reviewed some of Cicero's more 
difiicult Orations in company with my friend, but at the 
same time paying off my old debts to him and keeping 
up my fluency in Latin Prose. With the same double 
purpose I used to revise his Latin Prose Composition, 



Five T'ears in an English University. 353 

but a shot which I made for the Member's Prize proved 
unsuccessful. Also I made my first regular attack on 
Italian along with another friend who had taken the 
highest Classical Honors, and was now resting after his 
toils in the otium cum, dig. of a small College Don. But 
neither of us went very zealously at our new pursuit, and 
our acquaintance with the tongue of Dante never be- 
came, to borrow a very old Joe Miller, a speaking ac- 
quaintance. There was a tempting Fellows' garden be- 
longing to his College, that overhung the Cam, with a 
carpet-like green to play bowls on, a mossy wall on one 
side and all sorts of vines with variety of flowers creep- 
ing over it, and a little table under a big tree, just the 
place to sip claret and eat huge strawberries. There we 
used to drop our Italian grammars, forget how tre viag- 
giatori trovarono un tesoro, and talk criticism and aesthet- 
ics till we had fairly talked each other out ; and some 
months after his part of the conversation would meet 
me, like an old friend in a strange place, when I opened 
a new Edinburgh or Eraser. 

The Bachelor in most cases gives himself a kind of 
half holiday his first summer, as, not expecting a Fellow- 
ship at the first trial, he does not particularly lay him- 
self out for one. Thus the men about me were more 
assimilated to my habits of half-work, and I had more 
opportunities of observing what had often struck me be- 
fore — the development which takes place in an English- 
man's mind after the age of twenty-two, when he re- 
covers in two or three years all the ground which he 
appeared to have lost as compared with an American, 
Scotch or Continental student, and gains a great deal 
more. The new traits of character, mental and moral, 
the new capabilities and veins of thought which were then 
displayed, the way in which they sucked up, as it were, 



354 Five Years m an English TTniviersity. 

for mere amusement, different kinds of knowledge from 
all quarters — all tliese things were most interesting to 
observe. 

It has been mentioned that some Bachelors sit in the 
first examination who do not present themselves at the 
succeeding ones. Sometimes the reverse happens, and 
a man who wishes to reserve himself for the second trial 
does not not show his hand at the first. This was my case ; 
six weeks before the time I was in Switzerland, where, 
and in Italy, I passed the autumn and most of the winter. 
Even among these new scenes the reminiscences of the 
study clung to me ; I carried along a volume of Plato 
and another of Thucydides, which were oftener in my 
hand than in my trunk. Before leaving Cambridge I 
had sent in an essay for the King 'William^ a prize left 
for the competition of Trinity Bachelors by some good 
Protestant ; and at Rome I heard of my success. March 
found me in my old quarters again, reading Plato's Laws 
and making an analysis of them as I went on, while my 
evenings were employed in a critical perusal of the Epistle 
to the Romans, in conjunction with a friend who was 
reading a little Theology not professionally. But the 
time had arrived when it was necessary for me to decide 
a question on which I had been pondering for several 
months, whether I should " gang or bide." Loving the 
place as I did, I could not disguise from myself the fact 
of my being in a false position there. I would rather 
have been a Fellow of Trinity than anything which I 
could rationally hope to be in my own country, and there 
was a chance, though a very remote one, of getting a 
Fellowship ; but long before that was determined, I 
must have become an Englishman out and out, by pro- 
cess of gradual assimilation. Five years' residence 
where a man is an alien in religion may not altogether 



Five Years in an English University. 355 

qualify him to be a citizen, but when he is of the same 
religious persuasion with those about him, and both he 
and they indilFerent in politics, it begins to have a marked 
effect. I say indifferent hi politics^ for the adiaphorism 
of the better class in England at that time, was hardly 
creditable to one who had first seen them in 1840 and 
1841. They went pretty much where Sir Robert Peel 
chose to lead them, and the liberal, or so called, inter- 
ests were sufiiciently in the ascendancy to please any but 
a very strong Radical. News from America began to 
sound to me like news from abroad. I no longer took 
a personal interest in it. When unable to bear the voy- 
age homeward, I had longed passionately after my na- 
tive country ; now that I was able to go, I had lost all 
inclination. My Cambridge friends were fast filling up 
the place that had been occupied by my relatives at 
home. External events hastened my decision. The Or- 
egon difliculties were looking very black. Nothing that 
our papers or publications said, seemed half so like war 
as the silence of the English. A settled idea appeared 
to pervade the country, that we — or a majority of us — 
were determined to have a war, that it was not their 
fault and they couldn't help it, and must only be ready 
for it when it came. 

It was like tearing myself up by the roots to leave 
Cambridge. I gave in my resignation this time without 
recall, and took my name off the boards. The tutor ar- 
gued with me for some time, and at last, finding my de- 
termination not to be shaken, admitted that I was quite 
right to go. Then, by way of reasserting my nationality, 
I put up a motion at the Union (the questions for debate 
are always proposed in the form of motions), that the 
American claims in Oregon were just and reasonable, or 
something to that effect. The subject was discussed in 



356 Five Years in an English University. 

a rational tone, and the majority against us very small. 
Finally I took leave of my friends in a series of dinners, 
leaving them g,s last memorials a French dish (bisque 
d''ecrevisse), and an American one (cocoa-nut pudding), 
that there might be a pleasant memory of the transat- 
lantic in their mouths. On a fine May morning I took 
my last walk in the grounds of Trinity ; they had never 
looked more beautiful. Sorry as I then was to quit the 
spot, I have never since regretted that I did so. 



Five Years in an English University. 357 



THE STUDY OF THEOLOGY AT CAMBRIDGE. 

" "Were a German scholar to give his opinion on our universities, he would 
say that they constitute only a philosophical faculty with a small intermixture 
of theology." — JouBNAii of Education, vol. x. p. 69. 

THE American, and to a great extent the Continen- 
tal, idea of a University, is an institution for pur- 
poses of liberal education, which, besides a gefieral aca- 
demic department, comprises three special faculties, 
Law, Physic, and Divinity, to which the other faculty is 
deemed prepai-atory. The existence of these separate 
faculties is generally considered with us the distinctive 
mark of a University as opposed to a College. Judged 
by this rule, the English Universities would be no Uni- 
versities at all. The faculties of law and physic are 
represented in them by the slightest vestiges. Thus at 
Cambridge there is a Professor of Civil Law who lec- 
tures and examines a class of about twenty-four men a- 
year, and a Downing Professor of the Laws of England, 
who does not lecture or examine at all — at least, he did 
not m my day. The Professors of Botany, Chemistry, 
and Anatomy have classes varying from three to thirty. 
Medical school, in the ordinary sense of the term, there 
is none. Ask an English University man why these 
things are so, and he will answer that it is because the 
purely professional part of Law and Physic cannot be 
taught anywhere so well as at the metropolis, where the 
great hospitals and great courts are. With Divinity the 
case is diiferent. A large number of the University 
graduates, probably more than half, being destined for 



358 Five Years in an English University. 

the Churcli, and the chapels, clerical dress, and general 
routine of the place, adapting it well for getting up the 
mere formal part of the profession, that study is neces- 
sarily pursued to a considerable extent. Even here, 
however, the University does not pretend to complete 
the professional education, each bishop holding pi'ivate 
examination, by his chaplain, of the candidates whom he 
admits to Holy Orders. 

The state of instruction in and encouragement to the 
study of Theology were thus set forth in the report of a 
syndicate appointed to consider the subject in 1842 :— 

In the Previous Examination and in the Ordinary 
Examination for the B. A. degree, the University re- 
quires an acquaintance with one of the Gospels and the 
Acts of the Apostles in the original Greek, with Paley's 
Evidences and Paley's Moral Philosophy. 

The other encouragements and aids to Theological 
studies offered at present by the University (in addition 
to what is done by Lectures, Examinations, Prizes, &c., 
in the several Colleges) consist of 

The examinations and disputations conducted by the 
Regius Professor of Divinity in order to Divinity de- 
grees : (see note A.) 

The Lectures of the Lady Margaret Professor of 
Divinity : (see note B.) 

The Lectures of the Norrisian Professor of Divinity : 
(see note C.) 

The Lectures of the Knightbridge Professor of Mor- 
al Theology : (see note D.) 

The Lectures of the Regius Professor of Hebrew : 

The three Crosse Theological Scholarships : 

The six Tyrwhitt Hebrew Scholarships : 

The Prize (occasionally given on the Tyrwhitt be- 



Five Years in an English University. 359 

quest) for a Dissertation on some subject connected with 
Hebrew Literature : 

The Prize for the Hulsean Dissertation : (about 
£100.) 

The Prize for the Norrisian Dissertation : (£12.) 

Note A. 

The superintendence of all Exercises, required for 
the Degrees of Bachelor and Doctor in Divinity, is com- 
mitted to the Regius Professor of Divinity, who also is 
much engaged in Examinations more or less connected 
with Theological studies. 

Note B. 

Memorandum of the Lectures delivered by the Lady 
Margaret Professor since his election in 1839. 

I. On the Early Fathers : 

Introductory Lectures showing, 1st, from her ex- 
press declarations, and 2ndly, from her structure and 
services, the regard the Church of England pays to early 
antiquity : 

On the Apostolical Fathers (the Lectures on Igna- 
tius prefaced by an abridgement of Bishop Pearson's 
Vindiciae Ignatianse :) ; on Justin Martyr ; Tatian ; Ath- 
enagoras; Theophilus; and Irenaeus ; the last, now in 
the course of delivery. 

The object of these Lectures is to put the hearers 
eventually in possession of a knowledge of all the Fa- 
thers of the first three centuries : The plan has been to 
go through each Father in detail ; to give the substance 
of the author, where more than this did not seem neces- 
sary ; to translate at full and explain, where a passage 
was remarkable : and lastly, to sum up the whole (with 
references) under several heads, such as, Evidences, 



360 Five Years in an Englislx University. 

Canon of Scripture, Interpretation of Scripture, Sacra- 
ments, Ecclesiastical discipline and polity, Points of con- 
troversy with Rome, Classical illustrations, &c. 

When the Course is completed, it may be adjusted 
to the period of an undergraduate's residence in the 
University : meanwhile parts of it are repeated, and ad- 
vances made in it, every year. 

II. A Course of Practical Lectures on the acquire- 
ments and principal obligations and duties of the Par- 
ish-Priest : 

Introductory Lecture, on the ministerial character 
of St. Paul : 

On the Reading of the Parish-Priest ; (advising (1) 
the study of the Scriptures in the original languages, 
with examples of the advantage of this and other hints 
for reading them ; (2) the study of the Fathers of the 
first three centuries, with illustrations of the benefit to 
be derived from this study ; (3) the study of the Eng- 
lish Reformation in the documents set forth seriatim by 
the Reformers ; a list of these given, with remarks on 
each : The whole intended to put the students on apply- 
ing themselves to original authorities, as the sources 
of sound knowledge, and to divei't them from such as 
are only secondary and derivative :) On the composition 
of Sermons : On Schools, Sunday and Daily, the method 
of establishing, maintaining, and conducting them : On 
Parochial Ministrations, especially visiting the sick : On 
ordinary Pastoral Intercourse : On the observance of 
Rubric and Canons : On the geoeral Rules by which the 
Parish-Priest should be guided. 

The Margaret Professor proposes to deliver this lat- 
ter series of Lectures, with such alterations or additions 
as may suggest themselves, every second or third year, 



Five Tears in an English University. 361 

so that all students intended for Holy Orders may have 
an opportunity of hearing them. 



Note C. 

Outline of the Lectures delivered by the Norrisian 
Professor since his election in 1838. 

I. The provision made by the Church of England 
for securing in Candidates for Holy Orders, 

1. Moral fitness. 

2. Literary qualifications. 

3. Soundness in Doctrine. 

Occasion is taken to explain what is implied in sub- 
scription to Articles of Religion generally — and in sub- 
scription to the Three Propositions contained in the 
36th Canon particularly — references being, at the same 
time, given to Authors who have treated of these sev- 
eral subjects. 

n. The course of reading desirable to be pursued by 
the Candidate for Holy Orders is then considered, as 
embracing — 

a. The Sacred Scripttires in the original Languages : 
under this head is given a detailed account of 
some of 
i. The principal Editions of the Hebrew Bible 
and Greek Testament. 

ii. The Hebrew and Greek Lex- 1 

I to the sacred 
icons. r o • . 

r^ 1 I ocriptures. 
Concordances J ^ 

iii. The Commentaries on the Old and New Tes- 
tament, 
iv. Those writers who have treated of the Chro- 
16 



362 Five ITears in an English Unixiersity. 

nology, Geography, Antiquities, &c., of the 
Scriptures. 
A selection being made in each case, for the bihlical 
Student, of such books as seem, to the Professor, best 
adapted for the Student's use and circumstances. 

/?. The Prayer-Book. Under this head are noticed 
i. The conformity of the English Liturgy with 
the Scriptures, and with the best portions 
of the Liturgies of Antiquity, 
ii. The modifications which the Prayer-Book has 

undergone. 
iii. The importance of an accurate acquaintance 
with 

a. The office for the Administration of Bap- 
tism. 

I . Holy 

Communion. 

c. The Office for the Ordering of Deacons 

and Priests. 

d. Those of the XXXIX. Articles which 

treat of the doctrine of the Sacra- 
ments. 

In the discussion of these several subjects references 
are given to such writers as treat of them respectively. 

y. The Church of England as respects her 
A. History. Comprising under this division notices 
of 
i. The Ancient British Church, 
ii. The Anglo-Saxon .... 
iii. The Anglo-Norman .... 
iv. The Reformed .... 

The more important eras in each being pointed out, 



Five Years ^V^ an English University. 363 

and books mentioned in which information respecting 
the subject-matter may be obtained. 

B. Polity. Comprising an inquiry into 

i. The Scriptural authority for a Three-fold Min- 
istry, 
ii. The validity of the Orders of the English 
Church. 
The principal writers on these subjects being referred 
to as occasion requires. 

C. Controversies, With 

i. Infidelity. 

The bearing and importance of Natural Relig- 
ion, as connected with Revelation, being 
pointed out. 
ii. Romanism. 

Mentioning in detail the chief points in dispute 
with Romanists, and in the history of the 
Romish Controversy in this country, 
iii. Dissent. 

Marking the peculiarities of dissent, and the 
diiferent forms it has assumed both doctrin- 
ally and in its workings. 
The writers from whom information on these several 
topics may be obtained being severally referred to. 

D. 3fi?iistrations. 
i. Preaching. 

Taking occasion under this head to refer to 
sources from whence instruction may be de- 
rived respecting 

a. The style and composition of Sermons ; and 
then, 

b. Giving a List of some Authors whose Ser- 
mons may be read with advantage. 

ii. Pai'ochial duties. 



364 Five Years in an English University. 

In connexion with which such Books are refer- 
red to, as treat of 
a. The spiritual duties and general conduct of a 

Clergyman. 
h. Or relate to the secular affairs of a Parish. 
E. Endowments. Under this head notice is taken of 
i. The general jDrinciples involved in Establish- 
ments, as contrasted with, what is called, 
ii. The Voluntary Principle. 
Then is noticed, 

a. The origin of our Parochial and Cathedral en- 
dowments. 
5. Some of the chief points in their history : 
References being given to writers on these subjects 
respectively. 

Besides the several topics which have been thus re- 
cited, it should be borne in mind that the main outlines 
of the Evidences and Doctrines of Christianity are dis- 
cussed in such portions of Pearson on the Creed as are 
read and commented uj)on in the Course of the Lectures. 

Note D. 

The Professorship of "Moral Theology or Casu- 
istry," founded by Dr. Knightbridge, is considered by 
the present holder of it as a Professorship of Moral 
Philosophy. During the last three years, he has deliv- 
ered three courses of Lectures upon the History of 
Moral Philosophy, especially its history in England since 
the Reformation. During the present year he is deliv- 
ering a course of Lectures on the difficulties which at- 
tend the foi'mation of a System of Morality, and the 
mode of overcoming them. 



Five Years in an English University. 865 

By way of elucidation and comment it may be ob- 
served : 

1. A certificate of attendance on the Divinity Lec- 
tures is requisite to obtain tlie College testimonials for 
Orders ; these lectures are therefore very numerously 
attended, and by not a few Undergraduates. 

2. The exercises required for Degrees in Divinity 
are Latin theses, and the only remains of the old system 
of " keeping acts," which is now represented in the De- 
grees in Arts merely by payment of a small fee. 

3. Hebrew is not essential to admission into Holy 
Orders. Probably half the candidates have not studied 
it. But it is coming to be more and more required by 
the bishops in their theological examinations. I think 
it may be assumed that the study of Hebrew is more 
advanced in this country than in England. Several 
English scholars have admitted as much to me. On the 
other hand the Alexandrine Greek, jjarticularly the 
Greek Testament, is more carefully and accurately read 
there than here. Some portions of the Testament, the 
Acts for instance, are worked up with very great care, 
every subject relating to them, critical, historical, geo- 
graphical, antiquarian, controversial, being elaborated 
with the ixtmost pains. 

4. In 1846, was established an annual voluntary Theo- 
logical examination, open to all graduates at any time 
after taking their B.A. This examination consists of 
the Greek Testament, certain assigned portions of the 
early Fathers, Ecclesiastical History, the Church of 
England Articles and Liturgy. The names of those 
who pass respectably are published in alphabetical or- 
der. There is a subsequent examination in Hebrew for 
such as choose to present themselves, and to which 
Bachelors in Civil Law are also admitted. Many of the 



366 Five Years in an English University. 

Bishops now require that candidates for Orders in their 
dioceses shall have passed this voluntary Theological 
examination before presenting themselves to be privately- 
examined by the chaplain. 

5. There is no specified time necessary to be spent 
in preparing for Orders. Any B.A. twenty-three years 
old, and having the necessary Professorial and College 
certificates, may present himself, subject to the particu- 
lar conditions of his Bishop. 



Five Years in an English University. 367 



RECENT CnANGES AT CAMBEIDGE. 

Probably most persons will allow that a g^i-eat degree of caution is requisite 
in legislating on the subject of education.— Wheweli,. 

A LARGE class of hasty reasoners are accustomed 
to talk and doubtless to think, of the English 
Universities as old hulks water-logged or run aground 
in the stream of modern improvement, regions sys- 
tematically opjDosed to emendation, and uninvaded by 
the much boasted-of " march of intellect," where the 
same things are taught in the same way year after year 
and age after age. How far this reproach may be ap- 
plicable to Oxford I shall not pretend to say, but there 
certainly never was an academical institution less liable 
to the charge than Cambridge. I will venture to say 
that there is not an American College which has experi- 
enced during the last ten years so many and so im- 
portant changes, additions, and improvements, as that 
great University. Nor is this to be wondered at Avhen 
we consider that the governing body comprises men of 
different pursuits and preferences. Classics, Mathema- 
ticians, and Divines in large numbers, Metaphysicians 
and Casuists more numerous than an outsider or one 
superficially acquainted with the place might suppose, 
followers of natural science, less influential than the 
other classes, yet not without their weight, all eagerly 
on the look-out for any improvement in their favorite 
branch, and equally so for an occasion of urging their 
claims to greater attention and privileges. The clever 
men who remain attached to the University are very 



368 Five Years m an JEnglish University. 

soon put in possession of a share of the governing 
power. Some of the most important examinations are 
conducted by men under thirty, so that different ages, 
as well as different tastes and abilities, are brought into 
contact and collision. 

The changes which the principal examination for the 
Degree of B. A. underwent since 1800 and previous to 
1840, are thus detailed in a Report, for the year 1849, 
of the Hoard of Mathematical Studies, which Board is 
itself a recent institution. 

"In 1808, the examination of the candidates for 
Honors commenced on the first Monday in the Lent 
Term ; three days were devoted to Mathematics : and 
the candidates having been arranged in HracTcets accord- 
ing to the result of the examinations on those days, the 
order of their merit was finally determined by examina- 
tions of the Brackets on the following Friday. Each 
candidate was examined 18 hours in the course of the 
three days, of which 11 hours were emj^loyed in answer- 
ing questions from books, and the remaining 7 in the 
solution of Problems. The number of candidates that 
obtained Honors in that year was 38. In 1828, Avhen 
the number had increased to 90, the examination com- 
menced on the Friday preceding the first Monday in the 
Lent Term, and extended over four days, exclusive of 
the day of examining the Brackets ; the total number of 
hours of examination was 23, and the time assigned to 
Problems remained the same as in 1808. By regulations 
which took effect in January, 1833, the commencement 
of the examination was placed a day earlier, the dura- 
tion was five days, and the hours of examination on 
each day were b\ Thus 4^ hours were added to the 
whole time of examination, 4 of which w^ere appropri- 
ated to the answering of questions from books, and the 



Five Years in an JEnglish University. 369 

remaining half-hour to the solution of Problems. The 
successful candidates in that year amounted to 105. In 
1835 the number was 117, and the examination, for the 
convenience of the examiners, began on the Wednesday 
of the same week, without alteration in other resjiects. In 
January, 1839, there were six days of examination, 
beginning on the Monday preceding the first Monday in 
the Lent Term, and the total number of hours of ex- 
amination was 33, of which 8^- were given to Problems. 
The first day of examination was altered in 1841 to the 
Wednesday week preceding the first Monday in the 
Lent Term. The number on the list of Honors in 1840 
was 146. 

" Of the alterations relating to the classification of 
the candidates and the mode of proposing the questions, 
the following are those of chief importance. Previous 
to January, 1828, the candidates were divided into six 
classes, determined by the Exercises in the Schools ; dif- 
ferent printed Problems and viva voce questions were 
proposed to different classes, generally taken two to- 
gether, and the only questions proposed to all in common 
were the EveningVvdhlem?.. In the year above named, 
important regulations, confirmed by Grace of the Senate, 
Nov. 13, 1827, came into operation. The classes were 
reduced to four, determined as before by the Exercises 
in the Schools. On the first two days all the candidates 
had the same qiiestions proposed to them, inclusive of 
the Evening Problems ; and the examination from books 
on those days excluded the higher and more diflicult 
parts of mathematics, with the view of secxiring an ob- 
ject which, in the opinion of the Syndicate on whose 
recommendation these regulations were adopted, was 
highly desirable, viz. ' That the Candidates for Honors 
may not be induced to j^iirsue the more abstruse and 



370 Five Years in an English University. 

profound mathematics to the neglect of the more ele- 
mentary knowledge.' Accordingly, on the first day 
(Friday) the questions from books extended to such 
parts of pure Mathematics and Natural Philosophy as 
do not require the Differential Calculus, and on the Sat- 
urday were added parts of Natural Philosophy somewhat 
more advanced, and the simpler applications of the Cal- 
culus. On Monday, the first and second classes were 
examined together, and the third and fourth together, 
in questions from books and in Problems ; and on Tues- 
day, the second and third were examined together, and 
the first and fourth separately, in questions from books. 
The questions which had previously been given out vivd, 
voce, were printed, in order to make generally known the 
questions proposed in each year, and, by thus directing 
the reading of the students, to produce more fixity and 
definiteness in the mathematical studies of the Univer- 
sity. The printed papers also afforded the opportunity 
of ascertaining by inspection that the examination em- 
braced in due proportion all the ordinary siibjects of 
mathematical study. No change was made in the 
substance of the examination; the questions inserted in 
the papers being, like those which had been proposed 
viva voce, propositions contained in the mathematical 
works commonly in use in the University, or simple 
examples and explanations of such propositions. For 
the purpose of preventing those who had attended to a 
pai't only of the subjects from having any undue advan- 
tage by this mode of conducting the Examination, it 
■was especially recommended that ' there be not contained 
in any paper more questions than students well prepared 
have been generally found able to answer within the 
time allowed for such paper.' At the same time a dis- 
cretionary power was given to the Examiners of pro- 



Five Years in an English University. 371 

posing additional questions viva voce, if any candidate 
should before the end of the time have answered all the 
questions in the paper. This power, however, was not 
continued in the regulations of 1833, nor in any subse- 
quent regulations. With this exception, the preceding 
regulations may be said to have determined the princi- 
ples on which in the main the examinations have been 
since conducted ; and for this reason it has been thought 
right to insert them at some length in this Report. 

" By regulations which came into force in January, 
1838, the same questions were proposed to all the classes 
during the first four days. The order of difficulty of 
the questions on the first three days was the same as it 
had previously been on the fii'st two days ; but on the 
fourth day the examination extended to subjects of 
greater difficulty, care, however, being taken to insert 
into the papers some questions suitable to the lower 
classes. On the fifth day the examination was conducted 
according to classes. 

" In January, 1839, the division into classes was dis- 
continued, and the same questions were proposed 
throughout the examination to all whom the Moderators 
judged, from the public Exercises in the Schools, to be 
qualified for examination as candidates for Mathematical 
Honors. The order of difficulty of the questions was 
regulated nearly as before, questions selected exclusively 
from the higher parts of the subjects being proposed 
only on the sixth day of the examination." 

The examinations as they existed from 1840 to 1846 
have been described at length. During the last four 
years, from 1846 to 1850, several alterations, some of 
them very important, have been made. 

In 1846 the great Mathematical examination for 



372 Five Years in an English University. 

Honors was re-raodellecl ; it was split into two parts 
and .its time lengthened from six to eight days. 

During the first three days the Candidates were ex- 
amined only on the following subjects. 

Euclid. Books I to VI. Book XI. Props, i to xxi. 
Book XII. Props. I. ii. 

Arithmetic and the elementary parts of Algebra ; 
namely, the Rules for the fundamental Operations upon 
Algebraical Symbols, with their proofs ; the solution of 
simple and quadratic Equations ; Arithmetical and Geo- 
metrical Progression, Permutations and- Combinations, 
the Binomial Theorem, and the principles of Logarithms. 

The elementary parts of Plan^e Trigoj^ometry, so 
far as to include the solution of triangles. 

The elementary parts of Conic Sections, treated 
geometrically, together with the values of the Radius of 
Curvature, and of the Chords of Curvature passing 
through the Focus and Centre. 

The elementary parts of Statics, treated without 
the Differential Calculus ; namely, the Composition and 
Resolution of Forces acting in one plane on a point, the 
Mechanical Powers, and the properties of the Centre of 
Gravity. 

The elementary parts of Dynamics, treated without 
the Differential Calculus ; namely, the Doctrine of Uni- 
form and Uniformly Accelerated Motion, of Falling 
Bodies, Projectiles, Collision, and Cycloidal Oscillations. 

The 1st, 2d, and 3d Sections of Newton's Principia; 
the propositions to be proved in Newton's manner. 

The elementary parts of Hydrostatics, treated 
without the Differential Calculus ; namely, the pressure 
of non-elastic Fluids, specific Gravities, floating Bodies, 
the pressure of the Air, and the construction and use of 
the more simple Instruments and Machines. 



Five Years in an English University. 373 

The elementary parts of Optics, treated geometri- 
cally ; namely, the laws of Reflection and Refraction of 
Rays at plane and spherical surfaces, not including 
Aberrations ; the Eye ; Telescopes. 

The elementary parts of Astronomy ; so far as they 
are necessary for the explanation of the more simple 
phenomena, without calculation. 

In all these subjects, Examples and Questions arising 
directly out of the Propositions, were introduced int5 
the Examination, in addition to the Propositions 
themselves. 

All these subjects might be, and indeed have been, 
comprised in one volume of no very ponderous dimen- 
sions. 

This was a 2^ass examination for Honors. After 
an interval of eight days the examiners published an 
alphabetical list of those who had so acquitted them- 
selves as to deserve Mathematical Honors, and such 
Classical men in it as only wished to 7>ass were then 
sure of being Junior Optim6s. The candidates for 
higher Honors then had an examination for five days in 
the higher subjects, after which all the men on the first 
list were classed according to the examination of the 
whole eight days. 

At the same time an arrangement of the ttoTaoI was 
made into four classes, the men of each class placed al- 
phabetically, and the gulfed men were required to pass 
the non-mathematical part of the Poll examination be- 
fore their Degrees were allowed them. 

The advantages of this change in the Honor exami- 
nation were very great. The Classical men found them- 
selves in a far better position, having their requisite field 
of Mathematics accurately marked out, at the same time 
that the number of questions in it was enlarged ; while 



374 Five Years in an English University. 

they stood a chance of knowing what they did get up 
much more thoroughly and with more satisfaction to all 
parties. In respect to those who were candidates only 
for Mathematical distinction, an occasional abuse of the 
old system was eifectually guarded against. It had 
sometimes happened that men with more ambition for 
University Honors than Mathematical ability or steady 
application, had, though deficient in their low subjects, 
«aanaged to secure respectable places by lucky specula- 
tion in cramming parts of high ones. By making all 
the candidates pass a preliminary examination in the low 
subjects this occurrence was at once prevented. 

But the Classical men were not satisfied with the 
point they had gained. They continued to agitate the 
question, and finally in 1 849 opened the Classical TrijDos 
to the First Class of the Poll and the men gulfed in 
Honors. This change was efiected in the face of strong 
opposition, and some have prophhsied very deleterious 
consequences from it. For my own part, I doubt 
whether it will have any effect for good or evil. The 
grievances of Classical men in my time were these; 
first, the imcertainty of the amount of Mathematical 
reading required of them ; secondly, the annoyance of 
the Mathematical examination coming so soon before 
the Classical. The former was remedied by the change 
of 1846, the latter was not remedied by the change of 
1849. 

In 1848 it was provided, by the way of giving the 
Professors something more to do, that all candidates for 
an ordinary Degree, should, during their Undergradu- 
ateship, be obliged to attend for at least one term the 
lectures of one or more of the following Professors : 

Regius Professor of Physic. 

Professor of Moral Philosophy. 



Fwe Years in an English University. 375 

Professor of Chemistry. 

Professor of Anatomy. • 

Professor of Modern History. 

Professor of Botany. 

Woodwardian Professor of Geology. 

Jacksonian Professor of Natural and Experimental 
Philosophy. 

Downing Professor of Medicine. 

Professor of Mineralogy. 

Professor of Political Economy. 

Downing Professor of the Laws of England. 

Regius Professor of Laws. 

Also, that all students going out in Civil Law and 
•not taking a First Class in that faculty, should, before 
receiving their Degree, attend for one term the lectures 
of one or more of the first eleven Professors above 
named. 

The Classical Tripos received in 1849 the addition 
of a paper of questions in Ancient History — an addition 
not made before it was wanted, as minute scholarship 
was threatening to banish, under the invidious name of 
" cram," all antiquarian learning from the University. 

The Little-Go did not escape notice among all these 
alterations. Old Testament History, Arithmetic, and 
two Books of Euclid were added to it. Ecclesiastical 
History was also added to the fixed subjects of the Poll. 
Such a general stir woke up the King's men, who vol- 
untarily put themselves on a level with the other Col- 
leges by renouncing their privilege of taking Degrees 
without passing the examination. 

But the most important change was made in 1848 by 
the establishment of two new Triposes, those of the 
Moral Sciences and the Natural Sciences. 

The former includes Moral Philosophy, Political 



376 Five Years in an English University. 

Economy, Modern History, General Jurisprudence, and 
the Laws of England; The latter, Anatomy, Compara- 
tive Anatomy, Physiology, Chemistry, Botany, and Ge- 
ology. They are open to all Bachelors. 

On the benefits to result from the establishment of 
the latter examination, it may be premature to offer an 
opinion ; that of the former is clearly destined to be of 
much importance and value. It is, in fact, nearly equiv- 
alent to carrying out for the whole University the 
course of reading pursued for the " Metaphysical " pa- 
pers in the Trinity Fellowship. There are but two 
objections to its becoming immediately po]3ular. One 
is the want of pecuniary stimulus, direct or indirect, to 
the successful candidates. This will be obviated in 
time. There is no want of liberality on the part of 
Englishmen to encourage every form of learning. Dr. 
Whewell himself has here led the way by founding two 
annual prizes of fifteen guineas each for the tAVO candi- 
dates who pass the best examination in Moral Philoso- 
phy. The other is one which I do not know if those 
actually on the ground have paid much attention to, but 
it struck me, looking at it from a distance and remem- 
bering my own experience, with great force. The 
examination is held just between the Mathematical and 
Classical Trijjoses, and consequently those who are very 
anxious or at all doubtful about their Classical Degree 
will hardly be able to attend to it. 

[In 1850 an external force was brought to bear on 
the University. A Royal Commission was appointed 
(and a similar one for Oxford also) " to enquire into the 
State, Discipline, Studies and Revenues •' of the Uni- 
versity and the separate Colleges. Some persons, both 
in and out of England, thought that this Commission 
would have much the efiect of opening a railroad 



Five Tears in an JEnglish University. 377 

through a long secluded tract of country, and that some- 
thing very stunning in the way of improvement would 
result from it. On the other hand some of the " Dons " 
talked as if the Christian religion and probably the 
whole world were coming to an end. The two Com- 
missions sat for nearly two years and the results of their 
inquiries were embodied in two huge " blue books " 
which I remember receiving in 1852 (characteristic gift !) 
from Lord Stanley, now Lord Derby. If anything else 
besides the " blue books " took place of and in conse- 
quence, I am unable at this distance of time to recall it.] 



878 Five Years in an English University. 



THE CAMBEIDGE SYSTEM OF EDUCATION lif ITS INTEL- 
LECTUAL RESULTS. 

'KpeiTTov yap wov a/iiKpbv ev r] irokv }irj 'iKavug trepavai. 

Plato, Theat. 187, E. 

THERE are some subjects in treating of which we 
can plunge in tnedias res. The subject of this 
chapter is not such a one. We must, in discussing it, 
bear in mind the advice of the giant in the French fairy- 
tale, to " begin at the beginning." Before investigating 
the merits of any particular scheme of education, we 
must understand clearly what we mean by education, 
and what we consider to be the object of it. This go- 
ing back to first principles is, doubtless, a great bore in 
many eases, as where the Congressman, recorded by 
Sands, began his speech on a question of paving Penn- 
sylvania Avenue with a historical dissertation on the 
Constitution of the. United States ; and such an announce- 
ment made formally at this stage of a book is very like 
admonishing the adventurous reader who has travelled 
so far that now is the time for him to repose after his 
labors. Nevertheless, it is very necessary on some oc- 
casions, if he would avoid that satisfactory state of 
things which is called in Latin controversia, and in Eng- 
lish cross picr2yoses. For the term education is a toler- 
ably comprehensive one, covers a great deal of ground, 
and may be taken in a great many different acceptations. 
Ask one man to define education for you, and he will 
tell you (truly enough, too, in one sense) that every- 



Five Years m an English University. 379 

thing which a man passes through in his life is a part of 
his education for this world or the next. Ask another 
what he understands by education, and he will answer 
your question most Socratically by another, or a string 
of others, — "education of whom, and for what ? — a law- 
yei''s education, a doctor's, a merchant's ? " And if you 
tell him " a man's," he will be still less able to give you 
a direct reply. Ask a third what the end of education is, 
and he tells you oi-e rotundo^ that it is " to qualify men 
to do good," which is a magnificent sentiment to hear, 
only if you come to cross question this gentleman as to 
the particular kinds of " good " that men are to be 
qualified to do, you will find them to include robbery 
of private individuals, resistance to public authority, 
and a general propensity to upset everything established. 
There are certainly some very odd ideas on this same 
subject of education afloat among us. Here, for in- 
stance, is a passage which I find in a book called Hints 
towards Reforms* a series of lectures and discourses 
delivered by Mr. Horace Greeley, editor of the New 
York Tribune. 

" The youth who fancies himself educated because he 
has fully mastered ever so many branches of mere 
school learning, is laboring under a deplorable and peril- 
ous delusion. He may have learned all that the schools, 
the seminaries, and even our miscalled universities, 
necessarily teach, and still be a pitiably ignorant man, 
unable to earn a week's subsistence, to resist the prompt- 
ings of a perverted appetite, or to shield himself from 
such common results of physical depravity as Dyspep- 
sia, Hypochondi-ia, and Nervous Derangement. A 

* P. 211. 



380 JFive Years in an English University. 

master of Greek and Hebrew Avho does not know how 
to grow Potatoes, and can be tempted to drown his 
reason in the intoxicating bowl, is far more iraj^erfectly 
educated than many an unlettered backwoodsman." 

Now, as regards the " intoxicating bowl," it is cer- 
tainly a terrible defect in a man's morale that he should 
habitually get drunk, so it is, for that matter, that he 
should habitually advocate Anti-Rentism, or any other 
species of robbery; but I do not perceive that his edu- 
cation has necessarily anything to do with the one or 
the other. He may have a hereditary propensity to 
drink or plunder which no education can eradicate, and 
which can only be repressed or jounished by other influ- 
ences, or he may have started in the world a sober and 
honest man, and have afterwards become perverted by 
warping influences. But I wish to call particular atten- 
tion to the words which I have italicised, and the propo- 
sition which they convey, to wit, that to grow, or, in 
more correct English, to raise potatoes (to the dignity 
of which vegetable Mr. G. has further testified by the 
big P he emj)loys in spelling it) is a more essentia] 
branch of education than Greek and Hebrew. 

Now, methinks, a reader of ordinary capacity and 
reflection, if he had his attention attracted by such a 
passage, and were led to compare for himself the rela- 
tive value of the two things referred to as elements of 
education, would, in the first place, be likely to inquire 
the amount of labor and time respectively necessary to 
become a master of the two things. And I fancy the 
result of his examination would be that a thorough 
knowledge of Greek and Hebrew requires assiduous 
application to them for a number of years, probably 
seven or eight, at least, while the Science of Raising 



Five Years in an English University. 381 

Potatoes may be conquered in a few seasons, perhaps 
months, taken at intervals. And this consideration 
would not improbably lead him to the conclusion that, 
so far at any rate, the scholar had acquired the more 
valuable part of education, because, supposing them 
compelled to change places, he could learn to raise po- 
tatoes much sooner than the potatoe-grower could learn 
Greek and Hebrew, provided their abilities were equal. 
This, then, would suggest another question, as to the 
relative amount of mind and capacity requisite to make 
a Greek scholar and a raiser of potatoes. To this, I 
imagine, he would not be very long in finding an answer, 
that to make a Greek and Hebrew scholar a man re- 
quired to be, not a transcendent genius certainly, but a 
person of fair capacity, rather above than under the av- 
erage intellect ; that to be a scholar is not tov Tvxovrdg, 
or, in plain English, possible for every man that you 
may pick up in the street ; that if the scholar is not 
necessarily a Mercury, neither is he such a stick as can 
be made out of any wood ; and much more to the same 
purpose, which Mr. Greeley himself would hardly make 
bold to call in question ; while, on the other hand, it 
would appear to him that any man not naturally an idiot 
is capable of being instructed in the cultivation of ]30- 
tatoes, as the example of the Irish peasantry fully shows, 
who excel in that cultivation, though very poorly off for 
intellectual endowments. Hence the conclusion would 
not unnaturally follow, that the knowledge of Greek and 
Hebrew was in itself a stronger evidence of a man's 
being something out of the common than the knowledge 
of raishig potatoes, and therefore more valuable to a 
man in giving him a start in life. 

Further, as education must be admitted, from the 
nature of the case, to have some effect on the mateiial 



382 Five Years in an English University. 

subjected to its influence, our reader will be induced to 
ask, how far the study of Greek and Hebrew, on the one 
hand, and the learning to raise potatoes on the other, 
respectively improve a man or a nation, morally or men- 
tally. And here, I think, the result of his investigations 
will be, that the study of Greek and Hebrew has been 
generally allowed to improve the intellectual faculties — 
what faculties it improves, or to what extent, may be a 
mooted point, but that it does improve some of them, 
and in some appreciable degree, is almost universally 
conceded, and that nations famous for their knowledge 
of Greek, such as the Germans and English, hold a high 
intellectual rank in other respects ; whereas in the cul- 
ture of potatoes there is nothing that necessarily im- 
proves a man intellectually or morally, and in the case of 
a nation devoted to it, the Irish aforesaid for instance, it 
has been allowed on all hands to retard the moral, men- 
tal, and even physical improvement of the nation ; so 
that here again he will be apt to conclude that the Greek 
and the Hebrew have the best of it. 

But there is another light in which the student may 
view the question. He may look at it as a mere matter 
of dollars, and those dollars gained by no indirect pro- 
cess, but the immediate fruit of the two pursuits. To 
be sure this is a dreadfully low way of regarding the 
subject, but we had better come down to it for the sat 
isfaction of those who profess to be nothing if not 
practical. Even weighed in this balance, I think the 
Greek will preponderate over the potatoes. Putting 
out of the question any other mode of " realizing " his 
literary acquisitions, a good scholar can always get his 
living as a teacher ; I do not say a thoroughly comforta- 
ble living or as good a living as he ought to have in all 
cases, but a better living than a man can get by raising 



Five Years in an English University. 383 

potatoes ; and in any civilized country can command the 
services of more than one potatoe-raiser. Many a scholar 
may have difficulty in helping himself in some of the 
most ordinary occurrences of every-day life, and still be 
di'iving a very lucrative trade by his scholarship. I 
knew a Senior Wrangler so green in all apparatus rela- 
tive to horses, that once when we were riding out 
together and his curb-chain unfastened, he very soberly 
set to work to refasten it over the animal s nose ; but 
this very man was making more money at the time than 
the sharpest hostler at the most frequented livery stable 
ever did. 

And this brings on one question more ; in what con- 
dition of society xoill the knowledge of raising potatoes 
be of more pecuniary advantage to its possessor and 
more value to the community generally than the knowl- 
edge of Greek and Hebrew ? And the answer is most 
obvious : in the very first and primitive stage — \\\ an 
unsettled country — in the backwoods of a newly discov- 
ered territory — among that shipwrecked crew on a 
desert island whom Locke took as an example of his 
fancied " state of nature." There all men are hewers of 
wood and drawers of water, tillers of the soil, shooters 
of wild beasts or savages. There all elegancies of mind 
or body are out of place and premature, because every 
one's attention is absorbed in satisfying the immediate 
wants of life. There the confectioner and the scholar, 
the French milliner and the German metaphysician are 
alike useless drones ; the carpenter is a prince (as he was 
in Homer's time), and the historical painter cumbereth 
the earth. There and there only is Mr. Greeley's asser- 
tion a correct one. 

By the time the student has carried his speculations 
thus far he will be able to appreciate pretty correctly 



384 Five Years in an English University. 

the comparative value of the Greek preferred by his 
humble servant the author, and the potatoe-raising com- 
mended by Mr. Greeley ; and he will also have a neat 
illustration of a position maintained by many wise and 
good men — that Socialistn tends to put the lowest hind 
of xoorh above the highest, and therefore, so far from 
advancing, as it pretends to do, the course of civilization, 
goes directly to pervert and retard it, and to throw the 
world hack to the ages of barbarism. 

Returning from this partial digression and turning 
to a much higher being in the scale of animated nature 
than Mr. Greeley, we find this idea in the lectures of 
Professor Maurice, of the London University ; that from 
all the various systems and definitions of education ever 
proposed may be evolved three distinct doctrines ; the 
first, that the end of education is development of the 
factdties ' the second, that it is the restraint of certain 
faculties ; the third, that it is the giving of information.* 
(This is not the order in which he enumerates them, but 
as it is their historical order, I prefer stating them so.) 
For illustrations of these three princij)les carried out 
purely — so far as it is possible to keep them unmixed — • 
he refers to Athens, Sparta, and the modern Utilitarian 
school. 

This division I am disposed to accept as an important 
first step in our investigation. 

The first and second of these principles appear to be 
in direct contradiction, but it is the first and third which 
really clash, for the second looks chiefly to a particular 
set of faculties, difierent from those which are the main 
object of the first. In other words the idea of develop- 
ment has more reference to our intellectual ^ that of 

* See his Lectures on Education ; first Lecture or Chapter. 



Five Years in an English University. 385 

restraint more to our moral education. As a general 
rule there are more mental faculties that require develop- 
ing, and more moral propensities that require restraining. 
The illustrations chosen by the Professor show this ; the 
Athenian education wonderfully sharpened the intellect 
at the expense of the morals, the Spartan education left 
the intellect untouched ; it is no exaggeration to say of 
the Lacedemonians that they were illiterate 07i principle; 
whatever in their education was not physical, was moral. 
Such being the case, I put out of question for the present 
the second principle, not because a man's moral natui-e 
is not, in my estimation, of infinitely more importance 
than his intellectual, but for the same reason that in ex- 
amining the other two principles I shall set aside the 
questions of physical development and of information 
on subjects pertaining expressly to the physique of the 
student, although I hold that the body is the very first 
thing to be attended to, for if a man's body is not in 
good working condition, he will seldom be able to apply 
himself so as to improve his mind to the best advantage ; 
and if his physique is much out of order, his tnorale is 
very apt to be injuriously aftected. But I regard the 
improvement and education of the mind as the special 
business of a College or University ; just as I would say 
that the special business of one particular Faculty — a 
Law school, for instance, is to teach law ; and I should 
expect the graduates of a given College or University 
to be men of more intellectual power and refinement 
than the mass of the community ; if they were not, I 
should immediately conclude there was something wrong 
in the University course ; but if they were not stronger 
or healthier, or more moral men than the rest of the 
community, I do not say that I should be perfectly satis- 
fied, but I should be inclined to withhold my censure so 
17 



386 Five Years in an JEnglish TInwersity. 

long as they did not fall 'beloio the average in these 
resjDects, nor should I immediately set down their want 
of physical and moral superiority as the fault of the In- 
stitution. In all this I may be wrong ; however, my plan 
has at any rate the advantage of enabling us to consider 
one thing at a time ; to examine by themselves the in- 
tellectual advantages or disadvantages of the Cambridge 
system and then to compare them with those of any 
other, first similarly examined apart. 

Now the University of Cambridge adopts the first 
rather than the third of the theories above enunciated 
as the true theory of a liberal education. It does not 
propose to itself as its primary object the giving of in- 
formation^ but rather the developing and training of the 
mind, so that it may receive, arrange, retain, and use to 
the best advantage, such information as may be after- 
wards desii'able or necessary — such information as it 
may be the business of professional teachers to supply 
it, or its pleasure to collect for itself For this training 
the University has decided, not in blind obedience to 
precedent, for the subject is undergoing discussion 
within its precincts every day — that classical and mathe- 
matical studies are the best means, and it undertakes to 
teach them thoroughly. Here, at the outset, a difficulty 
arises which is satisfactorily provided for. Neither the 
preparation nor the abilities of those who enter on any 
college or university course at the same time being equal, 
it is a question with all academical authorities, how to 
make a class work together so that the dull ones shall 
not retard, nor the bright ones hurry the rest, and that 
all shall be kept busy without any being overworked. 
Now the Cambridge system, by its examinations of 
difierent kinds suited to different degrees of prepara- 
tion and capacity, and by its private tuition (which is an 



Five years in an English University. 387 

integral part of the system, though existing unofficially), 
has provided for educating every sej^arate student in 
accordance with his antecedents and capabilities, and in- 
geniously combines the advantages of a public and a 
private education. 

Tlie student then may learn more or less, but what- 
ever the amount, he is expected to learn it thoroughly. 
Hence, as the first efiect, he acquires habits of extreme 
mental accuracy. 

At our colleges it is so arranged that all the students 
go through the same course, at least during the most 
important years of their undergraduateship, and neces- 
sarily some go through it well and some ill ; it is too 
much for some, and not half enough for others. Now 
at Cambridge precisely the reverse of this takes place. 
A student may go through a very limited or a very ex- 
tensive course of reading, but whatever he passes an 
examination in he is required to do and know "well. 
Even those disparagingly known as ^xfss examinations, 
require more than half marks on their jjapers, and the 
way in which a slovenly and inaccurate man loses marks 
would astonish a great many of our students if sub- 
jected to them. And as we ascend, the demand for 
precision increases with the field for its exercise, till we 
arrive at cases of High Wranglers who have made not 
one single decided mistake in their six days' work, and 
of Senior Classics who " floor " the Tripos papers with- 
out an error. 

It is unnecessary to enlarge on the value to its pos- 
sessor of such a habit of reading, thinking, and writing 
accurately. 

I will merely allude to one of its advantages. A 
Cantab is most careful in verifying references. He will 
not take a thing at second-hand if he can go to the 



388 Five Years in an English University. 

original source of it. Hence he is little liable to be im- 
posed upon by the ignorance, real or assumed, of others, 
or to be the innocent medium of currency for other 
men's blunders. I believe that a historical, antiquarian, 
literary, or statistical error, put forth in print or public 
speech, is sooner and more certainly detected in Eng- 
land than in any other country, and that this is owing to 
the influence of Cambridge men and Cambridge educa- 
tion. 

But the English student does not only read his sub- 
jects accurately ; he reads them comprehensively, and 
so that he can apply them. It is, indeed, impossible to 
avoid the imparting, in some instances, of partial and 
exoteric information; but as a general rule it could 
never be said of the Cantabs what has more than once 
been said of American college students, that theirs is a 
knowledge of particular books rather than of subjects. 
And in no j^lace of education is there less parrotry^ less 
exercise of memory, as distinguished from the acquisi- 
tion of knowledge, than at Cambridge. The nearest 
approach to it is the case of the classical men who get 
up only Mathematics enough to pass as Junior Optim^s. 
Even here the knowledge, though temporary, is real for 
the time ; it is not retained in the mind, because it is 
immediately afterwards crowded out by more interest- 
ing matter ; but these men really understand their sub- 
jects for the examination, and can work, if not prob- 
lems (which are the last test of a man's mathematical 
knowledge), at least examples, deductions, and riders in 
them. Let me give an instance or two of what I mean 
by applying knowledge. A student for classical honors 
in his second or third year may be utterly imacquainted 
with some long author like Plautus. He reads two or 
three of the comedies, and gets them up so carefully 



Five Years in an JEnglish University. 389 

that he has acquired a good insight into the author's vo- 
cabulary and peculiarities of phrase and construction, so 
that he will make a very fair translation of a passage 
from any of the other plays which he has not read. Take 
a Cambridge Second-year man and an American gradu- 
ate, both disposed to study Plato ; let the former read 
four dialogues, and the latter eight, which will take 
them about the same time, each reading in the way he 
has been accustomed to ; the Cantab from studying 
half the quantity, will know more about his author than 
the American, and will translate and explain better a 
passage at random from any of the other dialogues. If 
our Cantab be a mathematical man, his skill in the ap- 
plication of his knowledge will be still further increased 
by the symmetrical arrangement of it. 

Again, the Cambridge student acquires manly habits 
of thinking and reading. He becomes fond of hard 
mental work, and has a healthy taste in his mental re- 
laxations. The trash of the circulating library he de- 
spises as he would sugar candy. No works of fiction 
but the very best, and those rarely, are to be found in 
his room.* His idea of light reading is Shelley's or 
Henry Taylor's poetry, Macaulay's Essays, a leader in 
the Examiner, a treatise on Ethics or Political Econo- 
my ; he would laugh at you for calling this " reading " 
in the University sense, or study. Such a taste is in- 
deed late in forming; when neai'ly a man in size and 
looks he is still disposed to be idle and schoolboy-like 
in the intervals of his hard work, and at eighteen is be- 
hind an American or Scotch youth in general informa- 
tion; but the habit of mind once started, he goes on 

* It was a rule of the Union Library to admit no novels, and 
so strictly was the rule observed that it was with great difficulty 
Walter Scott's could be introduced. 



390 Five Years in an English University, 

drawing in knowledge from all quarters at a vast rate, 
and whatever he does take into his well prepared mind 
assimilates itself with matter already there, and fertil- 
izes the whole, and fructifies ; nothing of what he reads 
is thrown away. 

Now the general and final efiect of this energetic, 
accurate, and comprehensive style of working, is that 
the Cambridge student exhibits great power and rapid- 
ity in mastering any new subject to which his attention 
is necessarily turned. If he has to acquire a foreign 
language or a new science, to become familiar with the 
elements of a difiicult j)rofession, like that of the law, 
or even to learn the details of a large business estab- 
lishment, in any case he takes cleverly hold of the first 
principles, and then proceeds accurately, but speedily, 
from step to step, till he has attained the desired knowl- 
edge. From many striking instances within my own 
observation, or only one remove from it, of the way in 
which a Cantab carries a thing through, let me relate a 
case that occurred just before I entered the University. 
A high Wrangler, then a Trinity Bachelor, went to see 
a relative who was largely engaged in tjie manufacture 
of plate glass. While lionizing the premises, he learned 
that the chief difficulty and expense lay in the polishing. 
Forthwith our Trinity man sets himself to " get uj) the 
subject," and after he has acquired all the information he 
can from those on the spot and such other sources as 
are available within a short time, he goes to work to 
calculate the formula of a law according to which two 
plates of glass rubbing together will polish each other. 
The result was an improvement which realized a hand- 
some fortune for the manufacturer. 

And now let us see how such a man will write on 
any subject — the consideration of which I may seem to 



Five Years in an English University. 391 

have unduly delayed, for the first and almost only test 
of a young man's ability that occurs to many of us (ex- 
cept making a speech) is his writing. What training has 
he had for this ? Directly very little ; he may not have 
written a dozen set essays — nay, not half a dozen — all 
the time he was at the University. But he has been ac- 
customed to reproduce the thoughts of others, rapidly, 
tersely, and accurately, upon paper. He has never had 
room for verbiage any more than for ornament. He 
will have a tendency to say whatever he says correctly, 
concisely, and pointedly. He will not write fluently at 
first, for want of practice, nor elegantly, for he has not 
cultivated the graces of style, but he will write under- 
standingly and from a real, conscientious study and 
knowledge of his subject. He will be ready to detect 
misstatements, inaccuracies, and false logic in others, and 
for himself will not be likely to commit an ignorantia 
elenchi j to miss the drift of a question — to find fault 
for instance with literature for not heing science^ as a 
very showy writer on this side the water did not very 
long ago. 

As to his style it will soon improve — thanks to 
another result of his education without which those 
mentioned would be very imi^erfect — an elegant and re- 
fined taste which arrives late at maturity only to approach 
nearer perfection. His mind is imbued with the influ- 
ence of the choicest classic models, through which he 
reads and hy which he interprets those of modern litera- 
ture. Applied to his case the argument so often urged 
against the study of the Classics in our Colleges, " that 
they are forgotten in a few years," would be false and 
meaningless. His Latin and Greek are not forgotten. 
They stick to him through life. They explain his read- 
ing and adorn his writing. They bring him into fellow- 



392 Five Years in an English University. 

shij) with the scholars, the men of elegant literature, the 
gentlemen of the intellect throughout the world. He 
does not have to hunt after Classical quotations and al- 
lusions to be brought in as bits of " business " for the 
purposes of making an impression on others still more 
ignorant than himself; they drop from him as naturally 
as a figure or an antithesis, and he feels they will please 
men of his own stamp, because he feels pleased to meet 
them elsewhere : they are liis cpuvavra awe-o'iaiv, vocal to 
the intelligent, though for the multitude they may need 
interpreters. 

This is a highly colored picture that I have drawn ; 
are there no dark shades in it ? Have I represented a 
man educated Ka-" evxfjv just as I should wish my son or 
yours to be in every respect ? There are one or two 
little deficiencies to consider, which we will look at in all 
candor. 

The first may have been anticipated from my silence. 
The two great results of College education which most 
of our people, including most of the students them- 
selves, look to, are public speaking and writing. What- 
ever else a young man knows how to do, he must be 
able to write fluently and showily and to address a 
meeting. Now the Cambridge system of education 
is certainly not calculated to make public speakers. 
By this I do not mean that it will spoil a man who has 
the material of a real orator in him as much as the sys- 
tem of a New England College will spoil a man who 
has a tendency to be a good scholar; but that it is not 
favorable to the production of those pretty good de- 
baters and ready haranguei's whom our places of instruc- 
tion turn out in such numbers. I have mentioned in a 
former chapter that some of the cleverest men in the 
place despised and undervalued public oratory on prin- 



Five Years in an Englisli TTniversity. 393 

ciple; and the ai;thorities do nothing to encourage it, 
except giving here and there a College prize. But it is 
not merely in this negative way, and from want of op- 
portunity and encouragement to practise frequently, 
that the young speaker suffers. The education he goes 
through is positively unfavorable to fluency on his legs. 
The habit of weighing every word accurately, may be all 
the better in the end for a man who has real oratorical 
genius, but is certainly all the worse for an ordinary 
debater. The general run of public speaking requires 
redundancy and repetition, nor does it admit a fastidious 
choice of words except in some elaborate concluding 
period. Just before leaving Cambridge I found myself 
falling off in ability to address an audience, and that in 
a greater degree than the mere want of practice would 
account for. 

This admission will settle the business in the eyes of 
some; they will deem it enough to counterbalance all 
the benefits claimed for the Cambridge system. My 
own opinion is, and I shall endeavor to prove it farther 
on, that we value this faculty too highly and pay too 
large a price for it. Still there is a medium here as in 
everything else; viewing the art of public speaking 
merely as an accomjylishment, it deserves more attention. 
A gentleman at a public dinner, for instance, ought to be 
able to extemporize some appropriate observations when 
called upon, without stumbling over his own words and 
making himself and every one else uncomfortable, as an 
Englishman is apt to do on such occasions. And here, 
I think, lies the English error on this point ; they regard 
a certain proficiency in public speaking as a purely pro- 
fessional matter, for the barrister or Member of Parlia- 
ment to learn subsequently to his academical course. 
But besides its professional value it is an accomplishment 
17* 



394 Five Years in an English University. 

which a highly educated man may be expected to pos- 
sess, arid should therefore form a part of a liberal 
education. 

The second deficiency is one rather more compli- 
cated and not so easy to explain or understand. I may 
state it thus — a tendency to tnaJce men too exclusively 
consumers and not sufficiently producers of hnoioledge. 
The Cambridge man is great in acquiring a mastery of 
a subject and using it for his own benefit, in his profes- 
sion for instance, but his inclination to promulgate his 
acquisitions and the fruits of them to the world, does 
not keep pace with his ability to do so. We see this 
exemplified in the resident Fellows, who, reading as 
many books as the German professors, write a great 
deal less. It is not idleness that causes this ; between 
teaching and study their time is pretty well filled up; 
the indolent and rusty Don who does nothing but drink 
port and play whist has become nearly a tradition. It 
is not any selfish or priestly feeling in regard to knowl- 
edge — no men are more ready to communicate informa- 
tion when you ask it of them. The tendency in question 
rather springs from false modesty and an excessive fas- 
tidiousness produced by hypercriticism. Accustomed 
to scrutinize with the greatest severity the performances 
of others, the English graduate is not indulgent to his 
own. He is just as hard upon them, and more dissatis- 
fied with them. A friend who was with difliculty in- 
duced to write a few images now and then for a Mathe- 
matical journal which he did with great clearness and 
force, once said to me on the occasion of my having a 
prize essay printed, " I should not like to publish any- 
thing myself; when you put a thing in print it seems as 
if yoti ivere perfectly satisfied with it^ and I never am 
with what I write." This is the spirit that keeps many 



Five Y'ears in a?i English Zfniversity. 395 

a competent man from making a name among the schol- 
ars and literary men of the civilized world. It is true 
such a man has a plausible excuse. He may say that 
since " of making books there is no end " and the ma- 
jority of those published are perishable and of small 
value, he will play a wiser part by not adding to the 
number ; that he had better be a reservoir to supply the 
streams of his neighbors, informing and improving his 
immediate associates by his conversation and unwritten 
learning. But surely when there is room for a new 
book on a new subject or an old one that has long lain 
fallow ; when new lights can be thrown upon old ques- 
tions ; when in short a man has acquired a certain com- 
bination of knowledge and ideas not to be found in any 
book, and the acquisition of which he feels would be 
beneficial to others as it has been to him, ought he not 
to write a book, his time, and means, and other circum- 
stances permitting ? I am very much inclined to think so. 
To sum up, it may be said that, as the utilitarian 
system inclines a student to communicate more knowl- 
edge than he possesses, the English University system 
will sometimes hinder him from communicating what he 
has. 



596 Five Years in an English University. 



PHYSICAL AND SOCIAL HABITS OF CAMBKIDGE MEJiJ". — 
THEIR Alius EMEXTS, ETC. 

Mens Sana in corpore sano. — Horace. 

SOME remarks already droi^ped here and there may 
have given the reader a hint of the comparison 
between the intellectual teaching of Cambridge and that 
of some other ^^laces to which I am proceeding, and 
which is one of the jDrincipal objects of this work. Be- 
fore arriving at this, however, it is necessary to look at 
our English friends all round, physically, socially, mor- 
ally, religiously. 

To a vegetarian, a teetotaller, a " eupeptic " of any 
sort (lovely names these are, and show a sitblime taste 
in the people who invented and use them) and, I fancy, 
to a New Englander generally, the Cantab's life would 
not appear the most regular, nor the kind of one best 
adapted to promote health, strength, and longevity. He 
is never up before half-past six in the morning, and sel- 
dom in bed before twelve at night. He eats a hearty 
dinner of animal food at 4 p. m., di-inks strong malt 
liquors with it, and not unfrequently strong wine after 
it. He is not shy of suppers and punch. He often 
starts himself for his morning's work with the stimulus 
of a cigar. He reads nine hours a day on a " sj)irt " the 
fortnight before examination, writes seven hours a day 
or more against time during the examination week, 
and the week after that does nothing but jollify. 

Yet this very man takes better care of himself and 



Five ITears in an English University. 397 

has a more philosophical system of living than many a 
conscientious and pains-taking ascetic, who has spent 
half his life in declaiming against the wickedness of al- 
cohol and tobacco. For eight or nine mouths of the 
year he is in a regular state of training; if he had to 
"walk a match the only change necessary would be for 
him to drink a little less. His seven hours of sleep (a 
rather scanty quantity, but enough for most men in good 
health*) are always the same seven hours of the night. 
The sponge bath and horse-hair glove are among the 
regular and daily accessories of his toilet. His break- 
fast is light and simple — a buttered roll and a cup of 
tea — and when he is at it he does not worry himself 
about anything else. He is discreet in his position when 
at work, and knowing that he has to stoop forward in 
writing at the examinations, does most of his reading 
leaning back in his arm chair or standing at a high desk 
where he strengthens his legs and eases his chest at the 
same time. After he has dined you could not bribe 
him to engage in any exertion of body or mind for at 
least two hours. The most he will do is to lounge to 
the Union and read the papers, or he may look over some 
easy and familiar book in his own rooms. But above 
all, his exercise is as much a daily necessity to him as 
his food, and by exercise he does not understand driving 
in a carriage, strolling about, or even playing billiards. 
" Constitutionals" of eight miles in less than two hours, 
varied with jumping hedges, ditches, and gates ; " pull- 
ing " on the river, cricket, football, riding twelve miles 

* There can be no Procrustean standard for such things. Some 
men will be satisfied with six hours, others reqiiire eight and a 
half. I have reason to believe that the average amount of time 
which a Cambridge reading man passes in bed is rather under than 
above seven hours. 



898 Five Years in an English Universlt}/. 

without drawing bridle; all combinations of" muscular 
exertion and fresh air which shake a man well up and 
bring big drops from all his pores, are what he under- 
stands by his two hours exercise. See one of lliese men 
stripped and observe the healthy state of his skin — that 
is enough to demonstrate that he is in good condition, 
even should you overlook his muscular developments. 

The staple exercise is walking; between two and 
four all the roads in the neighborhood of Cambridge — 
that is to say within four miles of it — are covered Avith 
men taking their constitutionals. Longer walks, of 
twelve or fifteen miles, arc frequently taken on Sundays 
or days succeeding an examination. The standard of a 
good walker, is to have gone, not once, but repeatedly, 
fifteen miles in three hours, without special training or 
being the worse for it next day. A number of my ac- 
quaintances professed to be able to do this. After walk- 
ing comes boating or " pulling," which is the sport par 
excellence of an English University, as sword exercise 
is of a German (this was the illustration given me by a 
man who had been at both). The men put themselves 
into extra training for the Spring races, eschew pastry 
(which an Englishman never takes much of at any time, 
generally eating cheese where an American does pie) and 
confine themselves to a small quantity of liquid, usually 
malt liquor, during the day. Besides these races, the 
Cam is always full during the warm season, of men 
pulling up and down, sometimes one, sometimes two in 
a boat. Some of the reading men work very hard in 
the boats. Two Smith's Prizemen and one Senior 
Classic were prominent boating men during the three 
years from '42 to '45. Cricket, football, fives, all games 
of ball in short, ai-e popular in their season. There is 
not so much riding as might be supposed, considering 



Five ITears in cm EmjUsh University. 399 

that there is not one Englishman in five hundred of the 
University-going classes, Avho cannot ride and does not 
like to. The expense is the reason generally alleged, 
and under the circumstances it shows more self-denial 
than University men usually have the reputation of. 
There is sufficient business, however, for five or six 
livery stables, those who keep their own horses being 
mostly the Noblemen and Fellow-Commoners, and a few 
of the Fellows. Englishmen have a patent for making 
any sort of horse leap, and when your Cantab gets on a 
hired horse, with his own spurs, to take perhaps the first 
ride he has had for three months, the amount he will get 
out of him is incredible, and the amount he gets out of 
himself somewhat remarkable. I recollect once being, 
with some other men, nine hours on horseback, during 
■which time we took no refreshment and did not once 
dismoiint. The whole distance ridden Avas not more 
than forty miles, but having to wait some hours for the 
steeple chase Ave went to see (and some of the leaps in 
which we took) our animals had the pleasure during that 
interval of walking about with us on their backs. When 
there is ice enough, which does not haj^pen every winter, 
the Cantabs are great skaters, and stories are told of 
their performances in this line which I will not repeat, 
for they sound very large and I could not positively au- 
thenticate them. There is a certain amount of fencing 
and sparring practised, more of the latter than the 
former, not a great deal of either. It is almost a sine 
qua non for a Cantab's exercise, that it should be in the 
open air. He never minds the weather, or thinks of 
putting off his constitutional because it rains. 

It may be asked whether, allowing from this regu- 
larity of exercise a high standard of strength and en- 
durance results, the general health of the men is also 



400 Five Years in an English University. 

good. For health and strength do not necessarily go 
together : in our country we meet many persons of 
great activity and a considerable share of downright 
strength, who are nevertheless always out of order and 
ailing. I have no hesitation in saying that the general 
health of the Cambridge men is on a par with their 
strength, and such as might be expected from it by an 
ordinary observe!'. Dyspepsia is almost unknown, bilious 
attacks are not common, consumption scarcely ever 
heard of. Sometimes a man gets a temporary affection 
of the heart from pulling too much, or some irregularity 
in his way of life. Sometimes he has a nervous attack 
from over work just before, or over excitement at an 
examination. These are the most general forms of ill- 
ness, and usually but temporary in their effect. When a 
death occurs it is almost always either from accident or 
wilful dissipation. 

I was anxious to obtain the statistics of Undergrad- 
uate mortality, for the purpose of bearing out my state- 
ments on this point by the actual figures ; but I could 
not get them, simply because none had ever been kept. 
Some of my medical friends made shots at the question 
from their own experience, and agreed in an average of 
three deaths a year; but this, among a population of 
eighteen hundred, must be below the mark. Of the 
" year" that entered with me at Trinity (that of 1844) 
three men died before the time of graduating, but two 
of these were lost by accidents ; of the year before 
(that of 1843), and of the year after, in which I finally 
went out (that of 1845), there was not a single man who 
died. I doubt if this ever happens at Yale College 
where the number of students is nearly the same as at 
Trinity) for two out of three successive years. Dur- 
ing five years that I passed at New Haven, there was 



Five Years in an English University. 401 

not a graduating class that had not lost at least three 
members. 

Indeed a man must be healthy as well as strong — " in 
condition" altogether to stand the work. For in the 
eight hours a day which form the ordinary amount of a 
reading man's study, he gets through as much work as a 
German does in twelve ; and nothing that our students 
go through can compare with the fatigue of a Cambridge 
examination. If a man's health is seriously affected, he 
gives up honors at once, unless he be a genius like my 

friend E , who " can't helj^ being first." To go on 

with half reading, and take a place below his own stand- 
ard, as I did, is what an Englishman is too proud to do. 

Why are the Cantabs in such good physical plight, 
when they have neither dietetic lectures nor voluntary 
societies ? All that you will hear in the way of precept 
is a tradition or two, such as that eight hours a-day, 
" coach " and all, is a proper amount of work for a read- 
ing man, or that it is not safe to read after Hall (i. e. 
after dinner). Regular exercise is the great secret. 
But why do they exercise so regularly ? First of all, 
it amuses them : where so many different kinds of exer- 
cise are attainable, every man must find some kind that 
he likes, and that he pursues without thinking all the 
time that it is for his health — which is one reason why 
it does him good. These young practical philosophers 
have wisdom enough to see that it is not enough to ex- 
ercise the body unless the mind is interested and diverted 
at the same time ; and they carry out this principle even 
in the " constitutionals; " a man will not walk out alone, 
for then he might be still thinking of the problems or 
the verses he was lately working at ; no, he takes a 
friend with him, and they two talk on some subject of 
the day, politics or literature, or at worst '' shop," such 



402 Five Years in an Miglish University. 

as who are likely to be the next Scholars — anything but 
their actual studies. Now this seems so obvious a dic- 
tate of common sense, that the acting in accordance 
with it may appear to involve no remarkable stretch of 
wisdom, nay, I may be thought platitudinous for enlarg- 
ing upon it at all; but I do insist that the principle 
deserves our attention, inasmuch as some professed lumi- 
naries of reform among ourselves have strangely ignored 
it, and with a short-sighted utilitarianism started a pre- 
cisely contrary doctrine. The proposition has been 
distinctly laid down by persons of different schools, 
from an Episcopal bishop to a Socialist of no particular 
religion, that there should be no such thing as pure re- 
laxation, but that when students are not at study they 
should be at woi'k — actually employed in manual labor. 
This is really using a youth at one of the tnost critical 
and important periods of his life worse than any per- 
son of comtnon intelligence or humanity woxdd use a 
horse. 

The doctrine is brought forward partly to cai'ry out 
a fancy that some people have of asserting the dignity 
of labor — of making out that manual occupation is 
something very fine and glorious, not for its results, but 
for and in itself; and therefore they would make stu- 
dents work for the mere sake of xoorking. Such a fancy 
is equally repugnant to reason and Scripture. The ne- 
cessity of labor was part of the primeval curse, and all 
beauty, or glory, or dignity pertaining to labor depends 
on the ends to which it is the means, I may respect 
most sincerely the man who drives a dung-cart, if I 
know that he supports a sick relative or educates a child 
from the fruits of his toil, but driving a dung-cart is a 
very undignified pursuit for all that. Most manual la- 
bor is in itself disagreeable ; men submit to it because 



Five Years in an English University. 403 

it is necessary and profitable, not for any merit or at- 
traction that it lias in itself. So they are delighted to 
obtain physic when ill by reason of the results they ex- 
pect from it; but no one would say that taking castor- 
oil is its own reward. 

To help along this crotchet comes the just-see-before- 
your-nose-and-no-farther sort of idea that all time not 
spent in doing something tangible is lost. Let me repeat 
a very old one for the benefit of these utilitarians. 

A country manager saw that the trumpets of his 
orchestra were not taking part in an overture which the 
other musicians were executing. He rushed upon them 
and inveighed against their idleness. " But," said one of 
the assailed, " we have fifteen bars rest here." " Rest ! " 
retorted the other, " I don't pay you ten shillings a-night 
for resting ; blow away ! " How the rest of the trump- 
ets should be essential to the harmony of the piece was 
beyond his comprehension. 

It is well known that scarcely one third of an enter- 
ing class at West Point graduates, and any cadet, or 
any person conversant with the place, will tell you on 
being asked the reason, that it is the union of hard study 
and militai-y drill (which amounts to a species of work) 
that causes so many to break down. A West-Pointer 
has told me that, after drilling, the men are so fatigued, 
in mind as well as body, that it takes them some time 
to settle down to study. I do not presume to find fault 
w^ith the system at West Point, w^hich is a peculiar one 
for a peculiar purpose. Its first object is not to educate 
young men, but to provide the U. S. Army with first- 
rate ofticers. The Government, having its pick out of a 
large number of applicants, has a right to sacrifice many 
of them for the sake of getting the best possible men 
for its own wants ; but a system which sifts out, in a 



404 Five Years in an English University. 

course of four years, more than two thirds of those 
subjected to it, would never answer for a system of gen- 
eral education. 

In schools where a rigid system of gymnastics is 
made the substitute for ordinary boyish recreations, the 
result is apt to be that, the play having been turned 
to a study, the study degenerates into play. Pestalozzi's 
establishment at Yverdun was a striking example of 
this.* 

In short, it is a safe rule to lay down, that, to keep a 
student in good working order for a length of time, the 
harder he applies himself to his studies while studying, 
the more diversioti he requires when taking exercise. 

The sensible example of their Seniors does a great 
deal to encourage these young men in taking healthful 
exercise. The Master of Downing is noted as the best 
skater in Cambridge, and may be seen cutting figures on 
the Cam during any hard frost. The Master of Trinity 
is a crack horseman, and few men of his weight in Eng- 
land can take a leap better. [Doctor Whewell rode 
literally to the day of his death. He was killed by his 
horse falling with him.] An English tutor or lecturer 
has no sham dignity which makes him fear to demean 
himself by joining in the sports of undergraduates, and 
consequently none of the undergraduates themselves 
think these sports undignified. Still less are they with' 
held by any religious scruples. That it is wrong for a 
clergyman to ride, or that walking for exercise on Sun- 
days is a species of practical infidelity, are propositions 
w hich they would be slow to admit. I remember once 
accompanying a college lecturer and tutor, a very young 
man, but whose merits and good character had gained 

* See Eraser's Magazine, vol. xliii. p. 631. 



Five ITears in an English University. 405 

him rapid academic promotion, on a long Sunday morn- 
ing constitutional between our early breakfast and St. 
Mary's at 2 P. M. We had been discussing all manner 
of ethical and theological questions, and thought we 
had passed the time rather profitably than otherwise, 
when suddenly something put me in mind of New 

Haven, and I said to him, " Do you know, M , where 

I was Avhen a boy they would think we had been spend- 
ing this morning very wickedly ? " 

He looked several notes of interrogation at me. 

" Because," I continued, " we have been walking." 

" What ! do they think it a shi to take a walk ? Do 
you mean this operation we have been performing .^" as 
if there must be some other recondite meaning beside 
the ordinary one, so incredible did what he had just heard 
appear to him. I assured him such was the case. 
"Well," said he, after a pause, "I wonder if they eat 
their dinner on Sunday?" Here were developed two 
traits of the Cantab — his appreciation of the necessity 
of exercise, and his contemptuous rejection of sham. 

From the exercises of the Cantabs one naturally 
comes to their amusements, under which head I include 
all relaxation which is not hard bodily exercise, and all 
in-door occupation which is not study. 

I have mentioned that there is a good deal of whist 
played by a certain set of reading men, especially on 
Saturday nights. But there are many laudably ignorant 
of the game, though they have no holy horror of it or 
of those who play it, and I never once heard a set hom- 
ily against cards from any one all the time I was at 
Cambridge. Non-reading men play vingt-et-un to a 
considerable extent, but for the lowest possible (six 
penny) points. Gambling is certainly not a prevalent 
vice in the University. The same class are also fond of 



406 Five Years in an English University. 

billiards, but not so much so as young Frenchmen or 
Americans. A reading-man seldom patronizes the bil- 
liard rooms, for the simple reason that, if he does, he 
soon ceases to be a reading-man. 

The chess club at Cambridge is a small one, but 
tolerably supported. 

The English are not a musical people, as those of 
them who know anything about the matter admit them- 
selves. Cambridge does not differ from the rest of the 
island in this respect. It is rare indeed to hear a Cantab 
sing. Were he to do so in the streets at night, like a 
Continental or American student, he would be set down 
for mad or drunk. Now and then a very boating man 
will favor you after his liquor with a song of the sort 
that had better be left unsung. Or if the University 
man attempts an instrument it is usually one of the 
most painful description, such as the cornopoeon, which 
when played by a master of it is only one degree on the 
right side of torture to hear, and when, as is usually the 
case, imperfectly understood by the attempter of it, is 
worse than a dozen donkeys. Once a Trinity man set up 
a private organ, and used to perform the Morning Hymn 
before chapel, in consequence of which he received 
sixty-five anonymous notes in one day, and at last, if I 
recollect rightly, the authorities were obliged to inter- 
fere and put a stop to the nuisance. 

Painting is better appreciated, though very few have 
time to cultivate the national ability for sketching or the 
means to possess many original pictures. But some 
first-rate engravings are almost a necessary part of the 
University man's furniture. These generally run in three 
classes — religious subjects, such as the most noted works 
of Raphael and Titian ; Landseer's animals ; and histor- 
ical incidents or portraits of great men. 



Five Years in a^i English University. 407 

But as may naturally be expected in a University, 
most of the amusements are of a literary character. 
There is a great deal of the old standard literature read, 
and new books of value are keenly criticised in conver- 
sation. Book clubs are formed, and as the works of the 
day pass from hand to hand they supply the members 
■with subjects of conversation when two or three of 
them are taking a quiet cup of tea (each man furnishing 
his own commons — ^bringing his little milk jug and his 
share of bread and butter as well as of knowledge). 
There was a club in Trinity that met once a week to read 
Shakspeare. Conversational criticism on books, informal 
discussion of literary, ethical, metaphysical, religious 
subjects — discussion in which men seek for truth rather 
tha '. victory, and speak from a full mind rather than with 
a ready tongue — is a necessity of the highly educated 
Englishman, his evening's ; musement, his opera. 

Such talks, whether two, hree, or more be present 
at them, usually result from some previous arrangement, 
made in Hall for instance, or during a walk. It is not 
considered exactly the thing to tumble in upon a man in 
the evening without warning, unless you have some par- 
ticular reason for it, or he is your particular friend. He 
may be reading or preparing to read. Generally, how- 
ever your Cantab takes care to guard against such a 
surprise by " sporting " himself in. 

If you call on a man and his door is sported, signi- 
fying that he is out or busy, it is customary to pop your 
card through the little slit made for that purpose. 
About these cards there is one little peculiarity. An 
English visiting card has the prefix of " Mr." not the 
name alone as with us. But a University man always 
omits this prefix if he happen to be using his " town " 
cards, he will draw a pencil through the engraved " Mr." 



408 Five Years in an English University. 

The more usual way however is to have blank cards, and 
write on them your name (and College if visiting a man 
of another College) in pencil.* 

* There are some of these little peculiarities in addresses, signa- 
tures, etc., worth noting as part of the Shibboleth by which our 
countrymen and the English may be distinguished. 

An Englishman having a middle name, sometimes writes his 
two initials before the family name, but more usually leaves the sec- 
ond initial out. Thus Mr. John James Brown will sign himself 
" J. Brown," and put '• Mr. J. Brown " on his card. The practice 
of writing or printing the first name in full with the middle 
initial, " John J. Brown," as with us, is not common. The custom 
of leaving out the middle initial sometimes puzzles those who do 
not understand it, and is a frequent source of ambiguity, I was 
myself led into error by it in regard to my friend Hallam ; his 
name was Henry Fitzmaurice : from his leaving out the middle 
initial I fancied he had dropped his middle name through some 
dislike for it. I knew two Englishmen travelling in this country, 
who had the same family name and the same first initial, which 
was enough to make some confusion probable, but their habit of 
omitting the middle initial which distinguished them made it ten 
times worse, and they were continually being mistaken for each 
other. 

Never address a letter to an Englishman as " Mr. John Brown" 
or " Mr. Brown," unless you want to insult him, but always " John 

Brown, Esq." or " Brown, Esq." if you do not know his 

Christian name. It makes an important practical difference to an 
Englishman, by the way, whether he is legally rated as " Esquire " 
or " Gentleman," the former class being exempt from some bur- 
thensome jury duties to which the latter is subject. 

Talking of addresses reminds me of a queer style some of the 
Dons had of beginning a note or letter to a pupil, " My dear Mr. 
So and So," giving the recipient an impression for the moment that 
he was honored by some lady's correspondence. Probably they 
intended something patronizing by it; a friend of mine who 
received a note beginning thus, commenced his answer with the 
same form, and the Don was much disconcerted. 

If an Englishman puts "Mr." on his card, he does not put 



Five Years in an English University. 409 

Of other tastes, habits, and peculiarities of Cambridge 
men, I do not know that there is much to be said, be- 
yond what may have ah-eady been inferred by the reader 
in the course of this work. They are perhaps rather less 
conventional than the general run of Englishmen, and 
pass Sunday in a more Continental manner. They spend 
little in personal equipment, and I have rarely heard 
a remark made of or to a man on the subject of his 
dress. They are generally very gentlemanly in their 
behavior — unless they happen to be drunk, and some of 
them even when they hapjDcn to be. They have an ac- 
curate sense of j^ublic j^rojoriety in most cases. You will 
not see a tipsy student out of doors in Cambridge of- 
tener than in New Haven. You will never hear a man 
swear in broad dayliglit. It is not considered manly or 
gentlemanly to walk in front of tlie College buildings ut- 
tering monstrous oaths, as many of our southern students 
consider it. Nor will you ever hear a man openly avow 
himself a disbeliever in the truths of Christianity. Some 
may say that this does not necessarily involve a pane- 
gyric on the Cambridge students, and only arises from 
their want of thought on the subject, a proposition to 
which I do not assent, believing that as a general rule 

"Sir " into every sentence of his conversation, as some of our peo- 
ple do. I have sometimes wondered -whether this 'continual intro- 
duction of the vocative was a polite Grallicism (since the French 
use " Monsieur " about as frequently in conversation), or whether 
it springs from our debating society and public meeting habits, 
regarding every one addressed as a president or chairman to be 
made a speech at. It certainly has a very stiff effect at all times, 
and sometimes a very ludicrous one. I have known southern and 
western gentlemen whose conversation seemed to consist of suc- 
cessive enunciations of " Sir !" with a few words between to con- 
nect them. 

18 



410 Five Years in an English University. 

there are no men who take their opinions on less evi- 
dence and investigation than infidels, and that men who, 
like poor John Sterling, refine away all their belief by 
over-speculation, are rare exceptions. 



Five Years in an English University. 41 1 



ON THE STATE OF MORALS AKD RELIGION IN 
CAMBRIDGE. 

A theologian in liquor is not a respectable object. — Thackeray. 

I APPROACH this part of my subject with very great 
hesitation and reluctance. In the first place, it is not 
pleasant, after having said many things in praise of an 
institution to which one is warmly attached, to be oblig- 
ed to say anything in strong and jDositive dispraise of it. 
But there is a much stronger reason for this feeling on 
ray part. The very fact of a man's writing upon matters 
of religion and morality looks like his setting up a claim 
to be a particularly moral and religious man. Any ap- 
proach to such a claim may well provoke severe scruti- 
ny, and there are some direct confessions as well as in- 
direct admissions in the course of this book which will 
not bear any very rigid test. In admitting this I do not 
allude to any places where the Z,atex Lyaeus is spoken 
of as an ordinary beverage and a promoter of festivity; 
in other words, where drinking wine is mentioned, and 
not mentioned as a sin, although well aware that many 
good people would consider me, as a necessary conse- 
quence of this, little better than an infidel, and totally 
disqualified from giving evidence on ethical or theologi- 
cal points. Allowing such persons all credit for sincer- 
ity, and wishing them a little more charity ; honoring 
them for their temperance, and trusting that they may 
learn to extend a little of it into other matters — their 
judgment of others, for instance — I cannot accept their 



412 Five Years i?i an English University. 

primary article of faith, or put myself under their juris- 
diction. There are other things which touch me more 
nearly, such as having walked round an oath and taken a 
degree under false pretences — a piece of Jesuitism for 
which I shall never forgive myself, and of which no other 
person can judge more hardly than I myself do. Be- 
sides this obvious instance, there are doubtless others of 
commission and omission, in the facts told and in the way 
of telling them, which may make me appear a very Cat- 
iline complaining of sedition if I do anything which re- 
sembles sitting in judgment upon others. 

Yet it is manifestly impossible to pass over this branch 
of our subject sicco pede. Admitting, as indeed we have 
already laid nown, that the special intent and primary 
idea of a University is to educate liberally the intellect, 
still the moral and religious condition of so many young 
men — the pick of their generation too, in more ways 
than one — must needs be a very important considera- 
tion; and when we take still further into account that 
this University is one of the great sources whence the 
National Church derives its teachers, the absolute neces- 
sity of saying something on this point must be apparent. 
No sense of personal deficiency shall prevent me from 
speaking out. Some suspicions might be brought on both 
myself and my Alma Mater by silence — on myself as 
utterly indifferent to the state of morals in a place so 
long as the intellect was cultivated and the animal well 
provided for ; on her, as allowing a state of things too 
bad to be mentioned and in regard to which silence was 
the safest defence. 

A young man passing as I did from an American 
College immediately to an English University, will cer- 
tainly be astonished at some and shocked at many of 
the differences he notices in the habits of those about 



Five Years in an English University. 413 

him from what he has been used to consider as the 
proper practice of students. That decanters and glasses 
should be among the articles directly recommended by 
the tutor's servant who assists him in furnishing his 
room — without any objection, too, from the Evangelical 
friend who assists him in his purchases ; that he should 
be able to order supper for himself and friends out of 
the College kitchen, and his College tutor, so far from 
appearing as a bird of ill omen to mar the banquet, will 
perhaps play a good knife and fork at it himself^ — all this 
seems odd to him at first, but he readily comprehends 
that the system is one suited to the more advanced age 
of the students, and one which, by refusing to make de- 
cent merriment a mahnn proliihitum within the College 
walls, deprives them of excuses for frequenting external 
haunts of dissipation. By-and-by, however, as his ex- 
perience increases, he finds that this liberty is often 
abused into the most shameful license. The reading 
men are obliged to be tolerably temperate, but among 
the "rowing" men there is a great deal of absolute 
drunkenness at dinner and supper parties. And, after 
making all allowance for the peculiar climate which ad- 
mits of stronger and move copious potations than ours, 
and the fact that an Englishman never drinks before din- 
ner, still it must be allowed that there is a prevailing 
tendency to drink rather more than is altogether bene- 
ficial even among those who are never actually intoxi- 
cated. In a mere physical point of view this is greatly 
to be regretted. If the temperate libations of our stu- 
dents could be superinduced upon the wholesome food, 
leisurely digestion, and regular exercise of the English, 
we might expect as the result astonishing sj^ecimens of 
health and strength. 

And, even with the chances which they thus throw 



414 Five Years in an English University. 

away, they are splendid instances of physical develop- 
ment ; but unfortunately their animal passions seem to 
be developed almost in a corresponding degree. The 
American graduate who has been accustomed to find 
even among irreligious men a tolerable standard of mor- 
ality and an ingenuous shame in relation to certain sub- 
jects, is utterly confounded at the amount of open 
profligacy going on all around him at an English Uni- 
versity; a profligacy not confined to the "rowing" set,' 
but including many of the reading men and not alto- 
gether sparing those in authority. There is a careless 
and undisguised way of talking about gross vice, which 
- shows that public sentiment does not strongly condemn 
it; it is habitually talked of and considered as a thing 
from which a man may abstain through extraordinary 
frigidity of temperament or high religious scruple, or 
merely as a bit of training with reference to the physical 
consequences alone ;* but which is on the whole, natural, 
excusable, and perhaps to most men necessary. One of 
my first acquaintances at Cambridge, the Fellow Com- 
moner next to whom I sat in Chapel, had not known me 
two days or spoken to me half-a-dozen times before 
he asked me to accompany him to Barnwell one evening 
after Hall, just as quietly as a compatriot might have 
asked me to take a drink ; and though it would cer- 

* It is a striking proof Iiotv physical considerations with an 
Englishman are apt to overcome all others, that a student ■will 
frequently remain chaste or not, entirely in accordance with the 
result of some medical friend's opinion as to the effect it will have 
upon his working condition. There was one well known case in 
my time of a man who preserved his bodily purity solely and 
avowedly because he wanted to put himself at the head of the 
Tripos and keep his boat at the head of the river. He succeeded 
in the former and more important object, but failed in the latter 
because there he had to depend on the cooperation of others. 



Five Years in an English University. 415 

tainly be unfair to take this youth as a type of all Cam- 
bridge, yet, just as a foreigner on being invited by a 
Southern or Western gentleman to " liquor '' soon after 
or perhaps before breakfast, might conclude that to 
drink in the morning was not an uncommon thing for 
an American, and that a tolerably large class of persons 
were in the habit of doing so — the proposition made to 
me in so off-hand and matter-of-course away might just- 
ify the conclusion that the practice was sufficiently com- 
mon — as indeed subsequent experience fully proved. 

Now, if I did not feel more the friend of Truth than 
of Cambridge ; if I could consider myself the advocate 
of the University, seeking only to make out the best 
case for my client ; if I thought it profitable employment 
to weigh different sins against one another, with a view 
of estimating their comparative enormity or veniality 
(which I do not, believing that from such kind of casu- 
istry sprang directly the worst abuses of the Jesuit 
school) — under any of these circumstances I should not be 
at a loss to make out a defence of Cambridge morals, on 
the principle so frequently adopted among us w^hen as- 
sailed by foreigners — the tu quoqice style of argument, 
or parrying one accusation Avith another. I might say 
that these young men, so inferior to ours in purity, were 
superior 'to them in some other moral qualities; that they 
minded their own business, and told no lies or scandal 
of others ; that the whole University of Cambridge does 
not contain as much hatred, envy, malice, and uncharita- 
bleness, and general ill-feeling as an American College; 
that I was personally acquainted with many men who 
thought no more of committing fornication than a South- 
erner at that time would have thought of murdering an 
Abolitionist, and yet were models of honesty, generosity, 
truth, and integrity : that men are frequent among us, 



416 Five Years in an English Tlnixtersity. 

not ouly in youth but at a more advanced stage of life, 
spotlessly pure, rigidly abstemious, making great per- 
' sonal and pecuniary sacrifices in the cause of philan- 
throphy, who are nevertheless greedy of scandal, care- 
less of truth, with very loose conceptions of the 
obligation of contracts or the duty of citizens to the 
government. I might set oif the integrity of one 
country against the jDurity of the other, and say, that if 
the Englishman is apt to forget that his body is God's 
temple, the American is equally apt to overlook the 
assertion, on equally high authority, that what cometh 
out of the mouth defileth a man. 

But such arguments, which though very briefly 
sketched above, are certainly not understated, rather go 
to point out to us our own errors than to excuse those 
of the English students, and are very like ignoring 
the question at issue. They prove, indeed, that all the 
moral virtues are not comprised in purity and temper- 
ance, but not that temperance and purity are not requi- 
site in a place making any pretensions to morality. 
Here are some hundred young men getting drunk sys- 
tematically, making one another drimk, with the eternal 
joke of blacking with burnt cork the first man's face 
Avho loses consciou.sness, making any stray '' snob " 
whom they catch drunk (a j)oor wretch of a tramp was 
killed my first year by some Trinity men, to whose 
rooms he came begging, and who gave him three quar- 
ters of a bottle of port), unmanning and un-gentleman- 
izing themselves to any extent. This is a bad state of 
things, and there is no getting over it. If they are very 
nice, honorable, and upright men when sober, more 
shame for them to degrade themselves systematically. 
I say systematically, for any man who habitually gets 
drunk must set about it with a certain system and j)re- 



Five Years in an English University. All 

vious design, since it requires but a moderate amount of 
common sense and experience to tell him how much he 
can carry. Here is a gross vice, the forbidding of which 
was one of the j^eculiar features of Christianity and has 
always been one of the leading distinctions in practical 
morality from all other religions, made a matter of 
habitual practice and a subject of familiar conversation. 
Can this go on in a place devoted to the education of 
Christian youth, without great blame being attributable 
somewhere ? But the worst is not told. Many of the 
men whose undergraduate course has been the most 
marked by drunkenness and debauchery, appear, after 
the " Poll " examination, at Divinity lectures — step out 
of Barnwell into the Church, without any pretence of 
other change than in the attire of their outward man — 
the being "japanned," as assuming the black dress and 
white cravat is called in University slang. Even a little 
hypocrisy would seem decent in such cases. The idea 
of going into Christ's ministry as a mere business, of 
being " put into one of the pi'iests' offices for a piece of 
bread," without feeling specially inclined to and qualified 
for such a work, is sufficiently abhorrent to people 
brought up in our way of thinking even when the 
hireling shepherd is a man of correct moral character ; 
but when his life for years has been giving the lie to 
every word he will preach, can language be strong 
enough to express our emotions of grief and indigna- 
tion ? Is it possible to exaggerate, is it more than just 
possible to caricature a state of things which can give 
rise to such occurrences as the following, which (except 
that the real names are changed and the coarse language 
of the narrator slightly modified) is literally set down 
as I heard it told ? — 

" You want to know what this row was between Lord 
18* 



418 Five Years in an English University. 

Gaston and Brackett — well, it happened this way. 
Brackett had brought his chere amie down from Lon- 
don. Gaston made her acquaintance. Brackett goes 
there one night and finds the door locked ; so he kicked 
the door open, and gave Gaston a black eye. Then 
Gaston wanted to challenge him, and said he didn't care 
whether he was turned out of the University or not 
[this is the penalty for being concerned in a duel] ; but 
his friends agreed that, as Brackett was going into the 
Churchy they had better make it up," &c. 

Or this — to take a much milder instance — at which, 
also, I was present. A Bachelor, whose life had been 
rather a notorious one, was about to be presented to a 
curacy. A friend inquires into the value of it, and comes 
to the conclusion that he has something better at his o'wti 
disposal. " You are to get ninety pounds a-year at Oak- 
stone, and no parsonage. Now our place is worth a hun- 
dred, besides the house, which is a very nice one — big 
enough to take pupils and all that sort of thing." The 
to-be-ordained pricks up his ears at the prospect. "And 
the parish is really a nice one," continues the friend, " but 
there is one drawback I must tell you in candor. There 
is an old woman lives near by, who makes it a principle 
always to quarrel with the parson." The parson in 
prospect inquires the name of this formidable elderly 
lady. It is the mother of a celebrated novelist. " Well 
to be sure," says the aspirant to the cure of souls, " she 
is a (I leave the reader to fill in the three mon- 
osyllables) ; but — a hundred a-year — and you said the 
house was in good order ?" 

Now it will not do to cite against such cases instances 
where itinerant preachers under the voluntary system, 
in this country or other countries, have turned out to be 
rogues and impostors ; to speak of the notorious Maffit, 



Five Years in an English University. 419 

or an almost equally notorioiis Temperance Lecturer. 
Such men are rare exceptions ; they are vaguely con- 
nected with some religious denomination, or, perhaps, 
actually repudiated by that to which they profess to be- 
long ; they spring from the low and ignorant, and find 
their victims in the class from which they sprang. There 
is no comparison to be instituted between them and the 
number of high-bred youth who every year are trained 
as gentlemen, receive a liberal education so far as they 
will avail themselves of it, and then enter deliberately 
on a mockery of the sacred profession, with a great body 
of clerical teachers looking on, and abetting, as it were, 
in the desecration. 

It would be more to the purpose to show that this 
immorality was partly, or in a great measure, OAving to 
causes over which the University or its individual col- 
leges can have no control. 

And certainly there are some antecedent and inde- 
pendent causes. A great deal of the mischief is done, 
that is to say, the seeds of dissij^ation are implanted be- 
forehand, at home or at school. The moral education of 
English boys is very much neglected, especially that pai*t 
of education which consists in example and in removing 
temptation out of their way rather than debarring them 
from it. The principle, maxima dehetur puero reverentia, 
which even a Heathen was able to see the wisdom of, is 
very little borne in mind. If boys can be made manly, 
that is to say, courageous, honest, and tolerably truthful, 
the formation of habits of purity and self-denial is alto- 
gether a secondary matter. Grown j^eople, old, grey- 
headed men, encourage boys to drink, and talk before 
them as the fastest specimen of Young America would 
not talk before his younger brother. A stranger, Avith 
no further knowledge of the subject than he would gain 



420 Five Years in an Miglish University. 

by reading any good sermons addressed to boys, Ar- 
nold's at Rugby for example, could not but remark the 
progress made in vice at an early age by the inmates of 
a public school, and the trouble which a conscientious 
teacher has with them in combating the fearful delusion, 
evidently derived not merely from the practice, but from 
the admitted theory of their elders, that indulgence in 
sensual vices is not incompatible with a Christian life. 

But there is another cause more deeply rooted and 
groAving directly out of the aristocratic constitution of 
English society. It is the low estimate which onen in the 
upper ranks of life fonn of women in the lower. The 
remark has often been made, and with perfect truth, that 
that spirit of chivalry which makes every man the pro- 
tector of every woman is a peculiar feature of American 
civilization. In some European countries it does not 
exist at all ; in others, as England, it is limited to a cer- 
tain class of society.* That shop-girls, work-women, 
domestic servants, and all females in similar positions, 
were expressly designed for the amusement of gentle- 
men, and generally serve that purpose, is a proposition 
assented to by a large proportion of Englishmen, even 
when they do not act uj)on the idea themselves. You 
meet the position, either directly expressed or implied 
(more frequently the latter), both in their conversation 

* It may be observed that a poor woman m England is just as 
likely to be maltreated by men in ber own walk in life as by those 
in a higher, only the ill-treatment takes another form, that of 
brutal usage. The cases of aggravated assault and battery upon 
women that come before the London Police magistrates are posi- 
tively startling in number and degree. In truth, the animal vigor 
of the Englishman is apt to degenerate with the lower classes into 
sheer brutality ; and of this open brutality, especially as exhibited 
toward women, there is probably more in England than in any 
other country in Europe, except perhaps Russia. 



Five Years in an English University. 421 

and their writings. A very clever and interesting 
traveller in Norway, when discussing the morality of 
different classes of the popvilation there, observes, " the 
servant-girls are what servant-girls are everyAvhere," as 
if there must be but one standard for women occupied 
in domestic service, and that necessarily a standard of 
degradation ! And in a popular novel published some 
years ago, I recollect that an old gentleman lecturing 
his nephew says to him, " You seduced a servant. I 
know young men are young men, and servant-maids are 
not Liter etias^ Then he goes on to say, that what he 
does blame him for is abandoning his illegitimate child 
without support. 

Once as I was walking in the oi^tskirts of Cambridge 
with a friend, a man strictly moral in his life, we came 
upon a group of children at play, mostly girls ten or 
twelve years old. " Poor things !" said he, " there go 
prostitutes for the next generation." It was the first 
thought that occurred to him on seeing these daughters 
of the people. 

The English upper classes are tolerably moral in their 
own sphere. Their won^en are well brought up. Their 
young men respect ladies ; perhaps it would be more 
correct to say they are afraid of them. But Avhatever the 
exact sentiment may be which actuates him, the young 
Englishman has not as a general rule the Frenchman's 
veni, vidi, vici persuasion that every lady he meets is 
bound to fall in love with him. But the virtue of a house- 
maid or a milliner-girl is a thing inconceivable to him ; 
he has no more conception of it than, I suppose, a native 
of New Orleans would have of the virtue of a Quad- 
roon. Yet he does not entertain any corresponding scep- 
ticism as to the possibility of moral excellence in the 
other sex of the laborinsr class. He does not think that 



422 Five Years in an English University. 

a poor man must necessarily be dishonest or mendacious, 
or may not be altogether a very good Christian. Still 
less does he fancy that he has a right to insult or ill-use 
him. If he did, the first clown who gave him a threshing, 
or the first magistrate before whom he was brought up for 
a breach of the peace, would soon convince him of his 
error. But that a woman from among " the common 
people " should be anything but a common woman he 
will be slow to believe. Female virtue he deems a lux- 
ury of the wealthy. 

A third cause has been assigned, which to me seemed 
not an independent one, and going directly to aggravate 
rather than lighten the responsibility of the University. 
It has been said by some of the Evangelicals that nothing 
can be done to improve the state of morality in the Uni- 
versities so long as the present Church system continues 
■ — so long as men will go, and are allowed to go into the 
Church merely as a means of support, and just as they 
would take up any other profession, or rather, with less 
thought and preparation than they would devote to any 
other profession. Now, granting that the connexion be- 
tween the Church and the Universities is not one of the 
most vital and intimate character, still it would hardly 
be possible to say that they are so far disconnected and 
independent of each other that a vitiated state of things 
in the University may be thrown oif and charged upon 
a general error in the practice of the Church. Let us, 
however, admit that this is another cause of immorality, 
making three in all, beyond the University's control. 
How does this affect its responsibility ? 

It appears to me that the ruling class in the Uni- 
versity generally, and more particularly in the particular 
Colleges, is not exonerated by the existence of these 
external and prior causes. For surely it is the business 



Five Years in an English University. 423 

of the University to improve and make the best of bad 
material that comes into its hands. In matters intel- 
lectual it not only admits this duty, but acts up to it. 
One of the essential objects of the University of Cam- 
bridge, as claimed for it by Dr. Whewell and others, is 
to correct the imperfect and one-sided teaching of the 
public schools, to supply their Mathematical deficiencies 
for instance. And though (to repeat it for the second 
time) the moral education of its members is not the 
University's primary and special object; yet it is an 
object too important to be ignored by throwing off all 
short comings in it upon the antecedents of the students. 
What steps does the University take to keep Under- 
graduates out of mischief? It appoints two Proctors, 
with their deputies, who on alternate nights, accompanied 
by their servants or lictors (popularly denominated hull- 
dogs)^ make the tour of Barnwell suburb and other 
suspicious places, and apprehend any women who may 
be seen openly enticing gownsmen, or any gownsmen 
detected in improper localities. Now I do not doubt 
but these gentlemen perform their disagreeable duties 
with much diligence, that they prevent some vice and 
detect more ; but were I asked honestly my opinion of 
their practical efficacy, I should say that they were not 
equal to the amount of police work they took in hand,* 

* Every Master of Arts is armed by the UniTersity with 
Proctorial power. How much this amounts to in practice a single 
instance will show. I was coming home one evening with a 
friend when we were set upon in the regular Haymarket or Regent 
street style by two women of the town who accompanied us for at 
least half a mile. As they really were a serious annoyance to us, 
I very innocently asked an M. A. whom we happened to meet (also 
a personal friend) to exercise his Proctorial power and make them 
go away under pain of the Spinning House (the Bridewell or 



424 Five Years in an English University. 

and that they were more successful in catching small 
ofienclers against University rules — pouncing upon a 
poor fellow like myself for instance, who had crossed 
the street after candle-light without his cap and gown, 
and fining him six-and-eightpence — than in checking or 
punishing men of profligate habits. The previous char- 
acter, moreover, of some of the persons who hold the 
ofiice, is such that their appointment can only be justi- 
fied on the pi'inciple of setting one delinquent to catch 
another. I have known men who at a pretty advanced 
stage of their Undergraduate course committed open 
acts of profligacy and disorder — by open acts I mean 
such as attracted the notice and incurred the censure of 
the College — but whose testimonials were not thereby 
forfeited or suspended. There is, I believe, but one case 
on record where a Trinity Fellow was refused testi- 
monials; of graduates not Fellows, only one case has 
occurred since 1840, and that not on moral grounds, but 
for Romanistic tendencies. It was a consolation to see 
that a candidate could be stopped for anything. And if 
any ofience against morals is committed in their own 
order, how do the Dons treat the delinquent? A 
tolerably strong case occurred in my time. A young 
woman of previous good character went to a Fellow of 
Kings to procure an order of admission to the chapel on 
Sunday evening. He made her drunk and seduced her. 
The reader will probably agree with me, that if the cor- 
poration of Kings had expelled him from their body it 
would not have been a punishment beyond his deserts. 

House of Correction for such cTiaracters). He took it as a very 
good joke, and began bantering tbe women and encouraging them. 
And indeed the idea of an M. A. exercising such power, is a mere 
joke ; the Proctor himself is nothing without his bull-dogs, and the 
gownsmen sometimes escape from or resist even these. 



Five Years in an English University. 425 

"What did they do ? They suspended him from his 
Fellowship for two years, which was equivalent to a fine 
of £400 or thereabout. 

After what I have said of Cambridge morals, to say 
anything of Cambridge religion may appear to some 
superfluous. They may be disposed to pronounce sum- 
marily that, admitting a certain outward decorum, the 
absence of noon-day profanity or openly avowed infi- 
delity, there must be aji utter Avant of spiritual vitality 
in such a place. Let us not, however, be too hasty in 
our conclusions. 

We have been speaking of men who were more or 
less depraved and immoral when they became members 
of the University. Let us take the case of a sincere 
practical Christian who enters, and examine what influ- 
ences will be at work upon his spiritual life. 

In the first place there is certainly a dangei- that his 
standard of holiness will be lowered by the many exam- 
ples of vice around him ; that he will fancy himself 
fulfilling the requirements of religion when he is only 
preserving those of morality. This is a great and obvi- 
ous peril on which it is needless to enlarge. 

Then (especially if he be a clever man) comes the 
temptation to intellect worship. It is a temptation in- 
separable from academic institutions, where the advance- 
ment of the intellect occupies the first place in the 
public attention and the egregia ingenii facinora claim 
the first rewards. Hence he is in danger of falling into 
the error, so fruitful of evil, of supposing that by 
improving his intellectual, he will, ipso facto, improve 
his moral nature. This supposition is not peculiar to 
students at old universities; it is one of the falsisms 
of the utilitai-ian school that we most frequently hear 
announced in all solemnity of language : it is also most 



426 Five Years in an English University. 

plausibly supported by the generally acknowledged re- 
sult of experience that a certain amount of wisdom and 
intelligence seems necessary for the consistent practice 
of virtue, as we sometimes meet men who are familiarly 
said not to know enough to he good^ohen they want to he.* 
But how unsound a supposition it is any scholar's ac- 
quaintance with Athenian literature and history may con- 
vince him.f 

But the picture is not without its bright lights. The 
prospect of the religious Undergraduate is not alto- 
gether gloomy. He is not deprived of that great sup- 
port and consolation, the presence of co-workers in a 
good cause. There are some places of education at 
which it is next to impossible (humanly speaking) that a 
young man should live without being corrupted by the 
universal example of those around him. He can only 
preserve himself by turning recluse and living in a state 

* I have often been struck with a remark of Dr. Arnold's to 
the effect that men ought to pray for judgment and understanding 
more than they do. The idea may seem strange ; it would not he 
difficult to represent it in a ridiculous light ; yet I am convinced 
it is one worthy of deep consideration. Solomon prayed for un- 
derstanding, and his prayer was approved. 

f One immediate consequence of intellect worship is that it 
makes men under-estimate women. The depreciating spirit to 
which I refer may he observed in men of very pure and strict 
lives; it does not, like the libertine's, sneer at woman's virtue; 
but while admitting her moral superiority, underrates its import- 
ance among the elements of society ; nor does it avoid her with 
monkish asceticism, but rather treats her with slightly contemp- 
tuo\is patronage as one might a child. 

This topic seems irrelevant in a religious discussion, but there 
is one point of view where it has a direct bearing — the prejudice 
which men of strong intellect frequently conceive against evan- 
gelical doctrines, because these doctrines are especially popular 
with women. 



Five Years in an English University. 427 

of negative if not positive hostility to his natural com- 
panions. Now Cambridge is not such a place. A 
young man who enters there and is disposed to find a 
truly " good set," can find one, or indeed have his choice 
among several sets of really virtuous and religious men. 
It was my comfort to know many right worthy the name 
of Christians according to the highest standard that was 
ever lived up to ; men of no particular clique or theo- 
logical school, but holding various opinions and coming 
from various places and teachers ; puj^ils of Arnold from 
Rugby ; Evangelicals from King's College,London ; other 
King's College London men of the Eclectic stamp, follow- 
ers of Professor Maurice, who looked at from a Presby- 
terian point of view might be called High Churchmen ; 
Eton men who were yet more eclectic and had trained 
themselves nullius jurare in verba magistri. Men who 
differed in many things but agreed in being sincere 
Christians whether you regarded their faith or their 
practice ; and whose conduct strikingly exemplified that 
common sense of religion which is so conspicuous in the 
writings of Whateley, Arnold, and other liberal Church- 
men, and of which a really good Englishman, when you 
find one, presents the very best specimen in his life. 
They seemed every day to solve that most difficult 
problem of " being in the Avorld, not of it." Their pro- 
gress in human learning did not make them forget that 
the fear of the Lord is wisdom and to depart from evil 
is understanding; nor did they deem that their pure 
lives and immovable principles gave them a license to 
be uncharitable and censorious. They made no parade 
of their religion on useless occasions, but when it was 
wanted it was never wanting. The recollection of some 
such men must have been present to Thackeray, when 
after scorching and withering with his sarcasm all classes 



428 Five years in an English University. 

of society in England, he suddenly stopped at the clergy 
and began to praise them. The remembrance of what 
some few among that clergy were, disarmed the uni- 
versal satirist. 

Why such men have not more influence in reforming 
the evils about them is a question easier to ask than an- 
swer. The existence of evil is the one great theologi- 
cal difiiculty, as Whateley well says, and the apparent 
non-success of good men in overcoming evil is but one 
branch of this difiiculty. After all, they may do much 
that does not appear on the surface. It is so in their 
after life. Many of their good deeds survive them, it is 
true, but are not heard of in their time so as to redound 
to their credit. A clerical hypocrite is detected in some 
wickedness ; he is brought into court ; the newspapers 
are full of it; the enemies of the church, or of religion, 
or of both, exult. A pious clergyman devotes every 
spare minute of his time not occupied in parochial duty 
to the drudgery of taking pupils, that he may support 
schools for the advancement of knowledge and true re- 
ligion, and may combat the Papist influences that have 
pre-occupied his ground : no one knows anything about 
it, except a few of his parishioners and intimate friends. 

In looking over this chapter (probably the worst 
written in the book, though it has cost me more trouble 
than any other) it occurs to me that among the many 
faults \\ hich may be found with it, there are two par- 
ticularly likely to be dwelt upon : the occasional use of 
coarse language, and the treatment of the whole subject 
in a meagre and inadequate manner. To the first charge 
I reply : English vice is a coarse thing ; it is as well per- 
haps that it should be so ; that men who will be vicious 
should be so in a coarse way, that they should get drunk 
on bad liquor, and keep company with the commonest 



Five Years in an English University. 429 

harlots : for so they at least act the part of Helots, and 
enable a young man's taste to be a powerful auxiliary to 
his virtue. But this vice, being so coarse a thing in its 
nature, cannot be described without some coarseness ; 
yet, though my language may be rough and inelegant, I 
deny that it is anywhere indelicate or voluptuous. In 
answer to the second charge, I can only repeat my origi- 
nal plea of incapacity; the consciousness of Avhich in- 
capacity yielded only to the impossibility of omitting 
the subject entirely from a work like this. 

But with regard to the theological disputes at Cam- 
bridge, Avhich have a historical, rational, and common- 
sense point of view quite independent of their religious 
nature, I feel able to speak more in detail ; and these de- 
serve to be the subject of a new chapter. 



430 Five Years in an English University. 



THE PUSEYITE DISPUTES IN CAMBRIDGE, AND THE CAM- 
BRIDGE CAMDEN" SOCIETY. 

" It is not hazarding too much to predict that a school which peremptorily 
rejects all evidences of religion except such as, when relied on exclusively, the 
logical canon irreversibly condemns, which denies to mankind the right to 
judge of religious doctrine * * * must, in the present state of the human mind, 
inevitably fail in its attempts to put itself at the head of the religious feelings 
and convictions of Great Britain ; by whatever learning, argumentative skill, 
and even, in many respects, comprehensive views of human affairs, its peculiar 
doctrines may be recommended to the acceptance of thinkers." — Mili/s Loaio 
(1843). 

THE era of my residence in Cambridge was in one 
respect fortunate ; it enabled me to witness a great 
struggle between, reactionary and progressive f)rinciples. 
Anglo-Catholicism and Young England were in all their 
glory when I arrived there ; they were pretty well on 
the wane when I left. 

The aim of the Anglo-Catholics (more generally 
known as the Oxford School, or by the popular nickname 
of Puseyites) may be briefly characterized thus : it was 
to bring the Church of England continually nearer to 
the Church of Rome without actually going into it. But 
as constructions of this sort, though possible and familiar 
enough in Mathematics, are not always exactly feasible in 
real life, it turned out that many of those concerned in the 
movement found themselves over the line before they 
were well aware of it. This, I say, was the general aim ; 
there were some few exceptions whose Anglo-Catholicism 
had a certain "finality" in it,and who maintained to the end 
a commendable distrust of the Pope while they would 



Five Years in an English University. 431 

have had no objection to become a sort of Popes them- 
selves. The writings of these exceptional characters 
have done the defenders of Puseyism good service in this 
country, and elsewhere among Protestant populations. 
Let it be said that the Oxford School favors the Roman- 
ists, and straightway their partisans will quote a few sen- 
tences from Mr. Sewall, and then solventur risu tahulce. 
But, as a general rule, so marked was the tendency 
Rome-ward that not a few believed the leaders of the 
movement to be Jesuits in disguise — a theory containing 
perhaps no inherent improbability, but not to be accept- 
ed in the absence of some positive proof A more prac- 
tical and plausible way of explaining the phenomenon, 
and which many adopted, was that the Oxford movement 
was a reaction from the Evangelical, as that was from the 
formalism of the old " High and Dry " party, and as the 
present Protestant excitement is from Puseyism itself. 
But since the human mind, in this age of progress, re- 
volts at the thoughts of absolutely retrograding, it was 
supposed by many that the Anglo- Catholics had invented 
or discovered some new idea — a delusion which they 
themselves countenanced by talking much about " devel- 
opments." 

Yet after all there was nothing unphilosophical in the 
prevailing opinion that Puseyism was only a revival of 
the exploded doctrines of former days. The reproduc- 
tion of error in the moral, political, and religious worlds, 
is a phenomenon that has already occurred too often for 
us to be startled at its occurring once again. A man's 
belief in physics is purely a matter of reason, in morals 
it is very often one of sentiment. When you have es- 
tablished a principle in mathematics or natural philoso- 
phy there is an end of it ; you have gained so much 
clear ground for all future time. Not so in politics or 



432 Five Years in an JEnglish University. 

religion. There a principle is established, or an error 
put down by a vast preponderance of evidence, but not 
by an irrefragable certainty of proof The demonstra- 
tion and refutation often take a practical form in their 
most important stages, as the English after much dis- 
cussion practically disproved the divine right of kings 
by getting rid of James and prospering under William, 
the logical part of the proof being arranged afterwards. 
So, after the new principle has been triumphant for some 
time, the error is forgotten, but the refutation is forgot- 
ten loith it, though men may be practically living on its 
results. By-and-by, since individuals are found in all 
ages with the same mental constitution and tendencies, 
the forgotten fallacy starts up into notice again, not un- 
frequently announcing itself as an original discovery. 
Then the process of refutation has to be gone through 
over again. The theological student soon observes how 
ancient heresies, Sabellianism for instance, are continu- 
ally coming vip again under pretence of being new dis- 
coveries in theology. The political student (I mean the 
man Avho investigates the history and science of gov- 
ernments with a higher view than that of making mer- 
chandise out of local and temporary party disputes) 
must be struck with the admixture of ancient fallacies 
in the social system of many a new light of the age. 
The Young England movement in politics, which though 
not coextensive with, ran parallel to the Oxford move- 
ment in theology, has been shown not to have originated 
a single new suggestion ; even Mr. D'Israeli's brilliant 
discoveries how the Whigs wanted to make a Venetian 
government of England, etc., were derived straight 
from the time of the Stuarts and even from sayings of 
the first Charles himself It must be remembered too 
in respect to Puseyism, that the abuses which it sought 



I'^ive Years in an English University. 433 

to restore in England had never been in abeyance 
throughout Europe. The original source of evil, the 
Komish church, had always existed, not at all times 
with full energy to work mischief, but always with the 
potentiality of an inclination for mischief 

It has been mentioned that the Anglo Catholic move- 
ment was viewed by many as a reaction from Evangeli- 
cism. The Anglo-Catholics from the first attacked the 
Evangelicals in one of their main strongholds, their in- 
fluence with the female sex. On the ladies they brought 
a double battery to bear, not only appealing to their 
feelings as the others had done, but also addressing their 
taste. With similar aesthetic arguments they attacked 
men of an elegant and somewhat effeminate turn of 
mind, and won over many pretty scholars and neat anti- 
quarians. By " developing " the same idea a little inveigh- 
ing against the coarseness of Puritanism and Evangel i- 
cism and giving oiat that theirs was the religion for a 
gentleman, they found favor with many persons in the 
upper classes generally, and made sham converts of 
many ^oadies of the aristocracy. To men of stronger 
minds in or destined for the church, they exhibited 
stronger and more congenial persuasives. They stimu- 
lated their ambition by suggesting, rather than distinctly 
explaining, the great power which the Oxford system 
would place in the hands of the clergy. A thoroughly 
excellent and conscientious man, one of my most valued 
friends, who was infected with Puseyism in the early 
part of his College course and afterwards happily re- 
covered, confessed to me that this consideration had had 
the utmost weight with him, and would continually in- 
terfere to bias his judgment, in spite as it were of himself 
And in politics, while encouraging all in the upper 
classes who were disposed to favor retrograde move- 
19 



434 Five Years in an English University. 

ments, they recommended themselves to the lower or- 
ders as their best friends, and to those who sympathized 
with the lower orders as the true social reformers. 

By an able use of these means the Anglo- Catholics 
had, in the years '42, '43, and '44, acquired a strong foot- 
hold all over England, and at Cambridge they had es- 
tablished an influence more dangerous to the church and 
nation at large than the power which they wielded at 
their original headquarters of Oxford, for the best and 
ablest young men of our University seemed to favor 
their views when they did not actually embrace them. 
The principal instrument by which the Oxford party 
planted themselves in Cambridge, and which by a right- 
eous irony was afterwards made the occasion of their 
signal discomfiture, was the Cambridge Camden Society. 

This Ecclesiastical Camden Society at Cambridge 
had no connection with the Literary Camden Society at 
London for the publication of Historical Documents, 
Diaries, Letters, Poems, Political Songs, etc., etc., here- 
tofore only existing in old manuscripts. It is proper to 
mention this at the outset, because the identity of name 
has caused much confusion even in England. 

The Ca'tnbridge Camden society was instituted in 
May, 1839, ostensibly with a view to "promote the 
study of Ecclesiastical Architecture and Antiquities, and 
the restoration of mutilated Architectural Remains." 
It professed to be nothing more than this, and its 
printed laws contained nothing dubious or objectionable. 
And though many religious persons might expect that 
such an association would indirectly attempt something 
for the spiritual benefit of the church, yet so long as it 
confined itself to its avowed line of architectural study 
and material decoration, no one could strictly find fault 
with it for omitting all mention of the vital truths of 



J^ive Y^ears in an English University. 435 

religion, any more than we could -vrith justice reprehend 
a professedly critical editor of the Greek Testament for 
having embodied no theological matter in his notes. 
But the craft and artifice of these men was, that they 
first inculcated a taste for mediisval art and architecture, 
for ancient church ornaments and furniture, as a purely 
CBSthetic and antiquarian matter totally independent of 
theology, and then, after a taste for, and interest in and 
attachment to these things had been formed and estab- 
lished, endeavored to deduce from them an adherence to 
those religious and jDolitical errors which were contem- 
porary with that art and architecture. In this they used 
a certain degree of caution, though here and there a 
phrase, such as " the errors of the Reformation," " the 
usurpation of William," peeped out from the veiy first. 
There was a marked and tolerably regular progress dis- 
cernible in the publications of the society for which its 
committee was responsible and in the publications of 
leading members of it to which it lent its sanction indi- 
rectly in every way without ojDcnly assuming the re- 
sponsibility of them. From abusing Dissenters they 
proceeded to abuse Low-Churchmen, from abusing Low- 
Churchmen to abusing the old High-Chui'chmen ; from 
non-reproval to cautious praise, from praise to recom- 
mendation, from recommendation to adoption of nu- 
merous Popish practices. 

The state in which the Camdenians found many of 
the candidates for Orders gave them a great leverage in 
their operations. It has been mentioned with what utter 
deficiency of moral, not to say religious qualification, 
numbers of rash young Englishmen enter into the sacred 
profession every year. There seemed to be, and doubt- 
less was among a large number, a practical conviction 
of the apostolic succession and its legitimately deducible 



436 Five Years in an English University. 

consequences ; a belief that some mystic influence was 
conveyed in ordination — some sjDecial grace which would 
sooner or later sanctify the recipient. And doubtless it 
sometimes happens in God's Providence that a bad man 
is converted to the truth by talking and preaching about 
it ; but the experiment is a fearful one for the congre- 
gation, and thrice fearful to the minister. Now the 
whole Puseyite scheme, by substituting an essential and 
inherent virtue in the order for the necessity of virtue 
in the individual, provided an unchristian minister with 
a sop for his conscience. But the Camdenian develop- 
ment of it did more ; it gave him something to do, and 
aroused the cravings of his better nature. For every 
man not utterly hypocritical or careless will, on finding 
himself in a position the duties of which he is unquali- 
fied to fulfil, endeavor to find or contrive some substi- 
tute for them ; if he cannot be a true pastor, he will like 
to play at being one. If now you can persuade him to 
adopt Gothic architecture for his creed, and mediaeval 
restorations for his reforms ; if you can convince him 
that rood-screens and floriated crosses are great articles 
of faith, and that preaching in a surplice or using altai*- 
cloths of a particular color on particular saints' days oc- 
cupy an elevated position in the list of good works, that 
it is a sacred duty to — not " orient " himself like Horace 
Mann's young man, but " orientate " his church, and that 
the destruction of a pew or gallery is of more import- 
ance than the reformation of a sinner ; — then you have 
satisfied him at a cheap rate ; he has his Body of Divin- 
ity speculative and practical, which gives him sufiicient 
occupation yet does not interfere with his old desires 
and inclinations. And this was the Tvpurov fevdog of the 
Camdenians, the fundamental charge that would have 
remained against them even had there been no connec- 



Five Years in an English University. 437 

tion between them and Rome — had there been no 
popery m the substitution of " altars " for communion 
tables, no priestcraft and monkery in the separation of 
the clergy from the laity by partitions and the men from 
the women by localities at church, had the Romish 
Church been out of the way altogether — that they con- 
verted theology into a matter of garniture and cere- 
mony, and what with crosses and triangles, jioppy-heads 
and gurgoyles, fishes and salamanders, made it as much 
a collection of absurd conventionalities as Heraldry is, 
or, to adopt the comparison of Rogers in the Edinburgh 
Review, as much a science of symbols as Algebra all 
hut the demonstration. 

For some years the Camden went on very triumphant- 
ly, and the Puseyites seemed likely to make Cambridge 
their point d ''appui. At their original headquarters they 
had sustained some decided defeats, such as the election of 
Garbett as Professor of Poetry instead of their candi- 
date Williams, and the suspension of Dr. Pusey. At 
Cambridge they had lost nothing, having refrained from 
sitch trials, which might bring out the full force of the 
older members of the University against them, and chiefly 
confined themselves to winning the younger. Their op- 
erations were not unobserved throughout the county ; 
Evangelicals, Eclectics, and High Churchmen of the old 
school, all thundered away at them. Now and then the 
monthly preacher at Great St. Mary's * attacked them 
on their own ground ; but they were not moved thereby 

* The colleges successively appoint one of their non-resident 
graduates to preach in the afternoon at the University Church for 
four or five Sundays. One of the Esquire Bedells (honorary at- 
tendants on the Vice-Chancellor) said that he heard a new preacher 
every month for thirty years, and thanked God he had some relig- 
ion left. 



438 Five Years in an English University. 

in practice, though very much smashed in argument, and 
obstinately refused to die when their brains were out- 
no wonder, since the reason of a thing was with them a 
reason against it, and one of their fundamental arguments 
was to deny the validity of argument. 

While these men were in the full tide of success I 
always expected their shipwreck was nigh at hand. That 
the English nation was going over bodily into the arms 
of the Romish Church never entered into my apprehen- 
sions — that my intelligent friends whose reason had been 
clouded by the mists of Tractarian sophistry would see 
clearly again before long was my constant expectation. 
I wish my faith in everything I ought to have believed 
in (things j)olitical, I mean) had been as strong as my 
faith in the defeat of the Puseyites and the upsetting of 
the Camden. 

In the Spring of 1844 Camdeno-Puseyism was at its 
zenith. It was then the University debating society 
passed that remarkable and irrational vote that monas- 
teries ought to be re-established ! But in the Autumn 
of the very same year a reaction began to show itself. 
Though too busy with my own alfairs to notice much of 
what was going on around me, I could not help observ- 
ing with great satisfaction that some of my best friends 
whose Puseyite tendencies I had deplored, were fast re- 
turning under the sway of charity and common sense. 
Soon the crash came on from without. It was more or 
less precipitated by an event of no very great impor- 
tance in itself, but which, like many other trifling occur- 
rences, lead to a discussion of great principles. 

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Cambridge 
was in the year 1841 very much out of repair; in fact a 
part of it had actually fallen in, and there was danger 
that the whole would come down. Some of the Cam- 



Five Years in mi English University. 409 

den Society came forward and offered not merely to 
repair the fallen part, but restore and beautify the whole 
church. The parishioners, who were the reverse of 
wealthy, gladly assented through their vestry, and the 
Restoration Committee appointed began to raise sub- 
scriptions and carry out their design. More than four 
thousand j^ounds were raised and expended in this 
restoration, which occupied more, than two years and 
converted the church into what one person might call a 
" perfect gem," and another " a perfect toy," according 
to their views of such restorations. Some of my read- 
ers are doubtless acquainted with the Temple Church, 
which is one of the lesser lions of London ; those who 
are will have some idea of the appearance which the 
" Round Church,"- as St. Sepulchre was commonly call- 
ed,* assumed under the hands of its restorers. The 
often mooted point of the propriety of such exquisite 
decoration, and its good or bad spiritual tendency, it is 
not necessary to discuss here at length. This much, 
perhaps, a man without previous bias might admit, that 
there is at least no more impropriety in a number of in- 
dividuals spending money upon a church than in any 
one of them spending it on his own house, and that to 
build a beautiful church is prima facie, and until some 
improper motive can be clearly assigned for it, an act in 
honor of God. The usual objection against making a 
show-place of a church proves rather too much, for ex- 

* It is sometimes mentioned in old deeds as " ecclesia rotunda." 
The more ancient part of the building is an exact circle. There 
are three similar round churches in England, those of Northamp- 
ton, Little Maplestead, and the Temple (in London) ; none of them 
are as old as St. Sepulchre's, which was most probably built in the 
first half of the twelfth century, though the precise time is not 
known. — Vide Le Keux's Memorials of Cambridge. 



440 Five Years in mi English University. 

perience shows that all churches possessing beauty, 
whether of external architecture or interior decoration,* 
will and must be to a certain extent show-places ; and 
this we can only escape by carrying out the theory of 
the Methodists (which even some of them have begun to 
deviate from in practice) that an edifice for the worship 
of God must be as ugly and barn-like as possible. For 
my own part I should as soon think of separating the 
sexes at church or obliging the women to wear veils be- 
cause men sometimes come there merely to look at 
them. As to the qualifications and provisos in the case, 
ordinary judgment will supply those, such as that the 
expenditure of art and wealth should be for the glory of 
God and not for the glorification of any set of men, 
priests or others, and that such decorations should not 
be considered a part of or a substitute for vital religion, 
that encaustic tiles should not be placed alongside of 
faith and charity, or stained glass accepted in lieu of 
gospel preaching. 

The incumbent of St. Sepulchre's was a non-resident. 
It must not be supposed from this, however, that he was 
an idle, ecclesiastical dignitary, wallowing in luxury and 
so forth — one of those over-paid do-nothing priests that 
radicals like to dilate upon. His whole church emolu- 
ments did not exceed £150 per annum ; $750 is not a 
very exorbitant salary for a clergyman in any country. 
But he was certainly a non-resident, and being in addi- 

* A person disposed to hypercriticism might perhaps draw a 
distinction between the two, and say that the exterior architec- 
ture cannot withdraw the attention of the worshippers within, 
from their worship, as the interior decoration does. But a church 
magnificent without and bare within, rather tempts strang-ers to re- 
main on the outside of it, so great is the feeling of disappoint- 
ment excited by the want of correspondence. 



Five Years i7i an English University. 441 

tion a man of small stature, it is just possible that the 
Camdenians overlooked him altogether and never took 
him into account in their restoration measures. His 
curate was a Small-college man, who used to write bad 
Latin in his Proctorial notices when he filled that office, 
two adequate reasons for considering him a cypher also. 
Towards the close of the year 1843, the incumbent made 
the discovery that the vestry had broken up the old 
communion table and erected a stone altar. He de- 
manded that this should be removed, and as, after much 
correspondence and '' fuss generally," his request was 
not comiDlied with, went to law — nominally with the 
church-wardens who had been put forward as a con- 
venient stalking-horse, but virtually with the Camden 
Society. These legal proceedings had the effect of 
stopping the consecration of the church (and conse- 
quently the celebration of divine worship in it) for 
more than a year, during which time the dispute was 
not confined to the courts but flowed over into the 
newspapers, and embodied itself in various periodical 
articles and even pamphlets. So far as the mere 
fact of stone altars existing in churches was con- 
cerned, the society had decidedly the best of it. They 
collected some two hundred cases, and among them the 
church of Mr. Close, the famous evangelical preacher of 
Cheltenham, which contained a very elaborate modern 
built altar. The affair put up in the Round Church, 
moreover, might have been called almost anything. It 
was a horizontal slab supported upon three perpendicu- 
lar ones, open in front and not solidly attached to the 
wall behind. It looks as if the Society must have 
brought the trouble on themselves by blazoning and 
boasting of the gift of money for an "altar" and its 
substitution for a table. They had a way of making 
19* 



442 Five Yem's in an English University. 

even desirable changes as disagreeable as possible to 
Protestants by their way of urging them ; thus they 
recommended the abolition of pews not merely because 
they disfigure the inside of a church and promote an 
unchristian exclusiveness in worship, but because they 
had originated loith the Puritans. It will be borne in 
mind that the name by which the thing was to be 
authoritatively called was the point at issue here, rather 
than the natu] e of the thing itself. An altar may exist 
through some fancy of an architect, as in Mr. Close's 
church, without any special meaning being attached to 
it ; but if a table be formally rejected and the substitu- 
tion of an altar insisted upon, it must be from some 
definite idea attached to the thing.* What is that idea? 
An altar is strictly and originally that on which sacrifice 
is offered, and the consecration of the elements on an 
altar implies that our Saviour was not sacrificed once for 
all, but is crucified afresh every time the sacrament is 
celebrated; which is sheer Popery. Although the 
Court of Arches ultimately decided against the church- 
wardens and the objectionable article was removed, yet 
the many precedents adduced by the society, the liberal 
manner in which they had beautified the church, and 
some other circumstances, caused public opinion to deem 
it nearly a drawn battle. Nevertheless this contest was 
in an indirect way fatal to the society — not through 
their pecuniary losses, though these were considerable — 
but because it involved a more thorough examination 
of their Romanizing tendencies and practices among 
persons rather inclined to be Adiaphorists in church 

* On one occasion of a similar dispute, the incumbent was 
satisfied -with having a wooden top affixed to the disputed piece of 
furniture — to show that it was not meant for an altar. 



Five Years in an English University. 4-13 

matters. The result was that the archbishops, several 
bishops, the chancellor and vice-chancellor of the Uni- 
versity formally withdrew their names from the list of 
patrons. The Protestant members of the society (about 
one seventh of it) did the same, and nearly all the Avith- 
drawals were accompanied by publicly assigned reasons. 
The Camden tumbled from its pride of place, and as is 
usual in this world's affairs, now that it was going down 
hill every one Avas ready to lend it a kick. One of the 
smallest possible straws may be taken as an indication 
of the direction in which the aura popularis now set. 
Our Epigram Club had a bare majority so far favorable 
to Puseyism and Young England that it would accept 
nothing reflecting very severely upon them, and several 
Epigrams had been refused admission into its record- 
book on this accoimt. But now (this was in the spring 
of 1845) one of us sent in a ballad on the defeat and 
embarrassments of the Camden — an atrocious piece of 
doggrel in itself, compared with which even the verses 
of the Camdenians, such as Mr. Neale's,* might pass for 
something like poetry; — nevertheless it was accepted 
almost without opposition, so evidently in accordance 
was it with the popular sentiment. 

The president of the society recommended that it 
should dissolve itself As there were some legal difii- 
culties in the way of doing this without the consent of 
all the members, it still continued (and for all I know, 

* " That worthy Pindar of Puseyism" as the Edinburgh called 
him. I annex the chorus of the ballad in question, quite enough 
to show that it was not approved on its literary merits. 
" Sing pygostole, chalice, and pyx ! 

Sing roodloft and credence with glee, sir, 
Did ever you see such a fix 

As that of this so-ci-erty ? sir." 



444 Five Years in an English University. 

continues to this clay) a sort of existence under the name 
of the " Ecclesiological, late Camden ;" but its meetings 
were no longer held in Cambridge, and it soon ceased 
to hold any public meetings at all. 

The Master and Fellows of Trinity fired a last shot 
after the retreating enemy, by refusing to give testimo- 
nials for orders to a leading member of the Camden 
Committee, who had advocated in his writings a scarcely 
disguised Romanism. This kicking out a traitor who 
was jDreparing to desert, and only waiting to do a little 
more mischief, was a surprise and discomfiture to both 
Puseyites and Romanists ; it had probably the effect of 
hastening the entire perversion of some of the former, 
whom the English church decidedly gained by losing. 

The decline of Puseyism throughout England was 
nearly simultaneous with the blow it received in Cam- 
bridge. True, it still exists, but with greatly diminished 
influence and power of mischief. The numerous per- 
versions to Romanism which took place during the years 
'46 and '47, though they gave the impression that the 
Tractarian heresy was spreading, were in truth signs of 
its losing ground. Some ultras of that school, finding 
that they could do nothing more in the Church of Eng- 
land and were rapidly becoming more and more insig- 
nificant there, went openly over to that communion to 
which they had virtually belonged for some time pre- 
vious. With the excejDtion of Mr. Newman, they were 
no loss in the way of talents, and generally they were 
no loss at all, except for the wealth which, in some in- 
stances, they transferred to the enemy. The old lady of 
Babylon always keeps a good look out after the sinews 
of war, and in this respect the apostasy of some titled 
members of the English Church is certainly to be re- 
gretted. 



^ive Years in an English University. 445 



INFERIORITY OF OUR COLLEGES A]S"D UNIVERSITIES 
IN SCHOLARSHIP. 

a/iA', wyai?', ohSi /novaiKijv ETTiaTa/iac. — Akistoph. Eqiht. t. 188. 

IN comparing University education — that is to say, 
the highest and most liberal style of education — 
in England and in our own country, it is but natural, 
since Classical studies professedly lie at the foundation 
of it in both, that we should begin by contrasting the 
pupils' proficiency in such studies. What English scholar- 
ship is, the reader may have had some opportunity of 
judging from the preceding pages. What American is 
we shall now proceed to examine. 

As I am about to say a great deal that is unusual, 
unpopular, and pretty sure to give offence, it may be as 
well, by way of preliminary, to anticipate a summary 
way of disposing of all my remarks, likely to be adoj^ted 
in certain quarters. It is a stock argument against any 
man, possessing, or supposed to possess an independent 
property, and having ever travelled or resided abroad, 
when he makes any assertion not flattering to the popu- 
lar vanity — an argument which may be briefly expressed 
thus : This man cannot give any valuable information 
to American citizens, because from his position and as- 
sociations he does not know what the duties of an 
American citizen are. It is imputing voluntary or in- 
voluntary incivism to every well-educated and travelled 
gentleman, and thence deducing the conclusion that 



446 Five Years in an English University. 

nothing which, he may say on any question of jjractical 
importance is entitled to consideration. 

People who reason thus, overlook one very import- 
ant element of the question. The probability of a man's 
giving important information or valuable advice on any 
point, depends not merely on his opportunities to know 
and understand the truth concerning it, but also on his 
being free to tell so much truth as he does know. If he 
is under any strong bias of personal interest ; if his pe- 
cuniary resources or his prospects of political advance- 
ment are likely to suffer by his telling unreservedly what 
he believes to be the truth, then his witness will be worth 
less than that of a man with less kno"\Adedge but more 
independence. An editor is certainly not in the position 
most favorable to the promulgation of unpopular truth, 
neither is a jDolitician. The circulation of his paper or 
his availability as a candidate are considerations that 
will continually interfere with the convictions of his 
reason. No one who is directly dependent on the pub- 
lic for support dares to tell it the truth at all times. He 
who is indirectly dependent, like the man of business or 
the professional man without private means, is more at 
liberty, but not completely so. And when a man of 
either class has, by the exercise of his talents and indus- 
try, gained fortune and reputation, so that he may say 
what he thinks without danger and with a chance of ef- 
fecting something, the probabilities are that, if a public 
man, he has so long habituated himself to the promulga- 
tion of the popular rather than the true, that his mind will 
continue to work in the same track ; and that if a private 
citizen, he will be principally inclined to indemnify him- 
self by the material comforts which wealth affords for the 
trouble he took to attain it, and will prefer a quiet life to 
the trouble of communicating his conviction to others. 



Five Years in an English University. 4,^1 

In short, a man who has nothing to expect or fear 
from the public, who never intends to depend on their 
suffrages for anything, who does not practise politics or 
literature for a livelihood, who is not in danger of in- 
juring his business by uttering unpopular oi^inions, who 
is not struggling for a place in fashionable society, and 
therefore not obliged to toady any individual or any 
set — such a man is almost the only one who can afford 
to speak the truth boldly, and is more likely than any 
other man to tell the truth, supposing that he knoios it. 

But why should he not know it ? Is it on account of 
his wealth ? Does that disqualify him from understand- 
ing republican institutions and what is good for repub- 
licans ? I fancy there are too many men making or ex- 
pecting to make fortunes for such a doctrine to be 
imiversally or very generally admitted. Moreover, if it 
be true, the Republic is not only certainly in danger, 
but must have contained the seeds of dissolution from 
its commencement, since the number of rich men among 
us has constantly increased and is increasing, in spite of 
laws, customs, and sentiments most favorable to the dis- 
tribution of wealth. Is it because he has travelled and 
lived abroad ? Let us take the extremest case. Sup- 
pose an American boy to have been left at a foreign 
school, to reside there during seven of the most impor- 
tant years in his life, to have partially forgotten his 
native language, so that he speaks a foreign tongue 
habitually and from preference, and has acquired the 
habits of his foreign schoolfellows and teachers. It may 
be urged with some plausibility that his education has 
not helped him to become the best kind of American 
citizen. But look a little further. A foreigner comes 
hither — one from the same country where this boy was 
educated; all these disqualifications exist in him to a 



448 Five Years in an English University, 

much greater degree, yet after a few years' residence he 
is admitted to all the privileges of a citizen, and may 
hold any office except that of President. How thrice 
ridiculous to maintain that a portion of the American's 
previous Hfe spent abroad incapacitates him more than 
the vihole of Ms does the foreigner. It is worth notic- 
ing, too, that the persons most zealous in suggesting the 
incivism of wealthy and well-educated men among their 
own countrymen, are usually those most patronizing of 
emigrant foreigners, are Democrats first and Americans 
afterwards, and value their country chiefly as a refuge 
for the radicalism of the world. Suppose an Ameri- 
can, from living or travelling abroad, has even acquired 
some foreign habits, that he drinks cofiee when most 
of his countiymen take tea, or vice versa, or wears a hat 
of a slightly different shape from the ordinary, is he 
therefore unable to sympathize with his fellow-citizens, 
or to understand what is for their advantage ? Have 
our adopted fellow-citizens no foreign habits ? Do not 
some of them get drunk and riot, and abuse Englishmen 
and Protestants, and lie and cheat at elections here, 
exactly as they did at home ? If we reject all reference 
to our naturalization laws, on the ground that they are a 
fait accompli and do not prove any principle, then we 
have the broad question — Does personal knowledge of 
another country disqualify a man for giving an opinion 
on the affairs of his own ? Now I should be far from 
maintaining the opposite extreme to the opinion I have 
been combating, by admitting that foreign travel is 
necessarily a benefit to an American. There is a com- 
mon-place of a certain class of men — two or three cer- 
tain classes indeed — I heard it so often from country- 
men whom I met abroad, and during the period imme- 
diately succeeding my return home, that I could calcu- 



Five Years in an English University. 449 

late with almost mathematical certainty when it was 
coming. It usually runs in these words : It is a good 
thing for a young man to spend some time abroad^ and 
see something of foreign coic?itries, because he usually 
returns with a better aj^preciation of his own. Now this 
I take to be quite as erroneous as the opposite conclu- 
sion. If the young man have some taste with not much 
principle, if he be only on the look-out for the pleasures 
of sense and Avorldly amusements, he will by no means 
return to his country better satisfied with it ; on the 
contrary, he will have eaten of the lotus in Paris or 
some other continental city, and be always looking back 
to it with regret. But an earnest man (to borrow a 
phrase from my friends the Apostles) will be much more 
likely both to understand the deficiencies of his country- 
men from living among people who have what they 
have not, and to appreciate their strong points from 
living among people Avho do not possess what they have. 

Lastly, is a man less able to understand the duties of 
an American citizen, or to give his fellow-citizens any 
advice, because he has received an elaborate liberal edu- 
cation ? Is he, for instance, less acquainted with political 
philosophy because he has studied the ancient Avriters of 
it as well as the modern, instead of the latter only, and 
those at second or third hand through the columns of a 
newspaper or a Congressional speech. Is he less able to 
judge of the tendencies of Popery in this country, be- 
cause he has mastered its history and traced its workings 
in other countries, or the follies of Socialism because he 
has read the Fifth Book of Plato's Republic and Aris- 
totle's answer to it? If so, the old Tory slander becomes 
a truth. Republicanism is not favorable to education 
except in a low and limited form. 

I protest therefore against being read out of court 



450 Five Years in an JEnglish U7iwersity. 

by any of those persons who have given themselves a 
patent for lookmg specially after the public interest ; and 
if any one of them, editor, lecturer, hack politician, or 
other sort of demagogue, who has just intelligence 
enough to be deceived by an American edition of the 
Cock Lane ghost, and just learning enough to tell his 
hearers that Plato proposed in his Republic the abolition 
of all family ties (which is just as correct as it would be 
to say that the Romish Church imposes celibacy on all 
its votaries) if any such man is prepared to attack me in 
the outset with the assertion that I do not know how 
American citizens are educated or how they ought to be, 
I tell him beforehand, in the plain language which it 
would do people of his stamp good if they heard oftener, 
that it is because I know too well both the evils existing 
and the probable results of a better system, because my 
advice tends to spoil his trade, that he would like to 
keep me from being heard. And now to the subject of 
this chapter. 

Were I to be questioned by an educated foreigner, 
an Englishman or Frenchman, German, Hollander, or 
Dane, upon the standard of scholarship in our Colleges 
and Universities, I should be obliged to answer, not 
having the fear of King Public before my eyes, that it 
was exceedingly low, and that not merely according to 
his idea, but according to the idea of a boy fitted at a 
good school in New York. When I went up to Yale 
College in 1835, the very first thing that struck me was 
the classical deficiency of the greater part of the stu- 
dents and some of the instructors. A great many of 
the Freshmen had literally never heard of such a thing 
as prosody ; they did not know that there were any rules 
for quantity : it may be imagined what work they made 
with reading poetry. Nor could their teachers, in many 



J^ive Years in an English University. 451 

instances, do much to help them ; one of our classical 
tutors did not know the quantity of the middle syllable 
in profugus^ almost the first word in the ^neid. The 
etymological part of Greek grammar (to say nothing of 
the syntax) was very imperfectly understood by the ma- 
jority, and of those who made pretensions to scholarship 
there were not ten in a class who could write three con- 
secutive sentences of decent Latin j)rose. The system 
of choosing the tutors to whose care the two lower 
classes were entirely committed, was enough to destroy 
any chance of rectifying the errors of bad and insufiicient 
preparation. They were elected from the graduates who 
had taken a certain stand on the average of all their 
College course — say the first fifteen. Now a student 
might get among these fifteen — the " oration men " — by 
excelling in classics alone with very little ability in or 
taste for mathematics, or vice versa • but he was obliged 
to take such tutorial vacancy as came to him in his order 
of seniority ; so the mathematical man might be set to 
hear classics or the classics to teach mathematics. The 
consequence of which was that not only the bad men 
did not improve, but the good ones were generally 
pretty well spoilt by the time they came to the Greek 
professor's hands in the third year. Not only was the 
course for all the students limited to the same books, 
and very small in quantity, so as to keep it at the level 
of the worst prepared (among whom were generally a 
large number of " beneficiaries " or charity students), but 
this small quantity was badly learned and taught ;* a stu- 
dent with classical tastes had no encouragement for get- 

* The only part of the first two years' course generally well 
learned was the Satires of Hoixice, thanks to Professor Anthon's 
labors, for which New England students are generally anything 
but grateful. 



452 Five years in an English Zfniversity. 

ting up his classics properly, for he had no chance of 
showing his scholarship or doing himself justice — his tu- 
tor could not appreciate him ; consequently if ambitious, 
he was easily tempted to seek distinction in other things, 
the various associations for the cultivation of " speaking" 
and " writing " in which the College abounded. The 
only extras in which the scholar could exercise himself 
and attain honor were the three Berkleian premiums. 
Two of these were for Latin composition in the first and 
second years, and some queer things occasionally hap- 
pened in the adjudication of these. Just after I left in 
'40 or '41, some enterjDrising youth sent in an exercise 
in Elegiac metre, a variation which so astonished the ex- 
aminers (the compositions being usually in prose) that 
they gave it the first prize. It was published in the Col- 
lege Magazine, and lo ! every pentameter except two or 
three had a radical defect in the metre — a spondee in 
the fourth place instead of a dactyl, e. g., 

"Invalidos artus laieniemqne pedem." 

He might well say " labentem pedem," sure enough. 

ISTevertheless, after all this there was still a possi- 
bility of our learning something in the last two years 
from some of the professors ; but to put the finishing 
stroke to us, by the beginning of the fourth year we 
were supposed to have become finished scholars, and 
further instruction of us in Greek and Latin was given 
up. When the third Berkleian premium was open for 
competition towards the close of this year — involving 
an examination in three Greek and three Latin subjects, 
with seven months of idleness (except three hours' 
lectures a day) to prepare for it, it sometimes happened 
that not a candidate presented himself! Yet the prize, 
as it was the only Classical one in the year and gave 



Five Years in an English University. 453 

some opportunity of showing scholarship, much more 
than the daily recitations which fixed the " appoint- 
ments" or regular College Honors, ought to have 
excited some competition, to say nothing of its pecuniary 
value to those remaining in residence, which must have 
been an object to many of the theological students 
residing after their graduation. I never heard of more 
than one candidate except in 1839, Avhen I went in 
myself along with a friend,* and the professors, after 
examining us both for the usual time allotted to one 
(four hoxu's for six subjects, one of which was the whole 
Iliad !), divided the prize without any further attempt at 
discrimination of our merits. 

How much temptation there was in such a state of 
things to read anything not included in the regular 
course may easily be conceived. How much was known 
of authors out of the course, one little incident will 
suffice to show. A student writing in the College 
Magazine, quoted the lines from Lucretius, — 

" Tu pater et rerum inventor, tu patria nobis, 
Suppedita prsecepta tuis, res inclyte cliartis," 

as a inodern distich. From the context in which he had 
found it there was nothing very remarkable in his 
making the mistake, but it was a little singular that no 
one in the place ever detected it for three years, and I 
presume no one has up to the present time. Fancy 
such an error passing unnoticed in a foreign University. 
Or fancy a Bachelor who wished, to carry out his 

* A. R. Macdonough, now of tlie New York bar, a gentleman 
of fine Classical tastes, and wlio under any system which gave 
those tastes encouragement might have become a superior scholar. 
He had a way of reading off Cicero ad aperturam into elegant 
English, that would have made an Oxonian's mouth water. 



454 Five Years in an English University. 

Classical studies, reading by himself for six months in a 
University town because he could find no one to teach 
him, as actually hajDpened to myself 

[ The lapse of twenty years has brought a change for 
the better, as well it might. Yale took a great start 
under President Woolsey, especially in Greek. I have 
assisted several times at a Scholarship examination there, 
and some of the translations from Plato that were sent 
up would have done credit to any students in the world. 
The weakest point of Yale (as of New England scholars 
and colleges generally), continues to be Latin Prosody. 
Columbia used to be far in advance of the New 
England Colleges and a fortiori of all others in the 
country. But its position in a large city prevented it 
from competing fairly with other institutions and made 
it in fact only a very superior day school for New York- 
ers. Even thus, the standard seemed too high ; it was 
lowered, while being raised elsewhere, and I am afraid 
the comparative position of the college is not what it 
was. The Harvard men have always pretended and 
still pretend to be far ahead of all other colleges, and 
especially of Yale. I have never seen any proof of 
this except their own assertion, and some little ad 
captandum contrivances, such as examining candidates 
for admission in the rules for Greek accentuation, which 
any smart boy under a skillful tutor could " cram" in a 
few hours sufficiently well to pass in them, though like 
most things easily learned, they are apt to be forgotten. 
But the whole business of accentuation looks very 
formidable to one who has never studied it, and makes 
a good cheval de hateaille. At Cambridge we did not 
attach any very great importance to the accents. I 
have known a University Scholar to write an for aej, and 



Five Years in an JEJnglish University. 455 

it was said that they only counted for twenty marks on 
the Greek prose composition paper in the Tripos.] 

It may seem very unpatriotic to say all this, but 
when people are not generally awake to their own defi- 
ciencies their eyes ought to be opened, and their real 
friend is he who tries to do this, not he who, by claim- 
ing for the country what it does not possess, makes it 
and himself ridiculous in the eyes of foreigners, and 
tends to make them sceptical in regard to its real merits. 
Talk to a stranger of our chivalry towards women, our 
sympathy between classes, our benevolence for public 
objects, the diffusion of rudimentary education among 
the masses, etc., and he may be well disposed to believe 
you ; but if you tell him at the same time that "So-and- 
So is a great scholar," Avhen his works prove him to be 
a very inferior one, or that " Classics are on the whole 
as well taught at Yale and Harvard as at Oxford and 
Cambridge " (I have heard this roundly asserted, by a 
public man too), and your foreigner says to himself, 
" Here is my informant grossly astray on a subject of 
which I can judge at once ; may he not be equally mis- 
taken in some of the other excellences which he attrib- 
utes to his countrymen ? " The English have injured 
their character by a similar mistake of claiming too much. 
Insisting on a superiority in the arts of life — in dress, 
cookery, and furniture, which they do not possess, and 
their claim to which is so readily disproved,, they have 
caused foreigners to distrust their pretensions to higher 
excellences which are less obvious on the surface, and re- 
quire longer and deeper experience and examination to 
appreciate. 



456 Five Years in an English University. 



SUPPOSED COUNTERBALANCIISrG ADVAKTAGES OF AMERI- 
CAN' COLLEGES. 

— ov6' laaaiv bau iv'kkov y/itav iravrog. — Hesiod. 

" The great comedian of Athens saw that the feeling of their own insight 
and profundity rendered his countrymen a prey to the vulgarest delusions. 
The great philosopher of Athens whom that comedian ridiculed, saw still 
deeper into the meaning of the same fact — saw that the most clever and en- 
lightened of the youth of Athens could talk about all manner of things, but 
knew nothing whatever of themselves." 

Maitkice's Lectures on Education. 

ADMITTING that our colleges do not teach Latin 
and Greek so well as the European ones, the 
natural and ordinary defence is, that they teach other 
things, and those on the whole of more value, bet- 
ter. Let us examine the particulars of this defence. 
What are the other things taught? — are they better 
taught ? — and are they more beneficial as means of lib- 
eral education ? 

And first, in relation to Mathematics. There used 
to be, and probably is still, a vague general impression 
at Yale, to the effect that the Mathematical course there 
is a very difficult and thorough one — that, in fact, Mathe- 
matics constitute one of the crack points of the institu- 
tion. This fancy certainly derived some support from 
comparison with the Classical course, as compared loith 
which the Mathematical was undoubtedly a good one. 
But that did not prevent it from being very bad, as tried 
either by an ideal standard, or by those existing in other 
countries. How far it reached is sufficiently shown by 



I^^ive Years in an English University. 457 

the fact that t4ie Differential Calculus, the vestibule as 
it were to all high Mathematics, was among the optional 
studies at the end of the third year. The Valedictorian 
at the completion of the course, or the man who gained 
the first mathematical prize in the second year, need 
never have studied it. Nevertheless, a covirse of Mathe- 
matics stopping short of the Differential may be a very 
good one so far as it goes. But this was not the case 
with the course at Yale College. In many of its stages 
it was liable to the same reproach as the classical, of be- 
ing a study of books rather than subjects. The learning 
and recitation of portions from day to day (for the an- 
nual examinations were little more than a form, and had 
no effect on the college honors) encouraged a habit of 
cramming from one day to another. A great deal of 
the work in the second or third year consisted of long 
calculations of examples worked with logarithms, which 
consumed a great deal of time without giving any in- 
sight into principles, and were equally distasteful to the 
good and the bad mathematicians. In fact, while the 
course was, from its daily recurrence throughout three 
years, and the amount of figuring it involved, more dis- 
agreeable to classics than a more diflScult and rigorous 
investigation of principles requiring less dead mechani- 
cal work Avould have been, the best mathematicians of 
the class always grumbled at it quite as much as the best 
linguists did at the classical course. They complained, 
that with the exception of two prizes for problems dur- 
ing the Freshman and Sophomore years, and an occasional 
"original demonstration" in the recitation-room, they 
had no chance of showing their superior ability and ac- 
quirements, that much of their time was lost in long 
arithmetical and logarithmical computations, that classi- 
cal men were continually temjjted to " skin " (copy) the 
20 



458 Five Years in an English Unwersity. 

solutions of these examples, and thus put themselves 
imjustly on a level with them; and much more of the 
same sort. I am strongly inclined to think that a course 
of mathematics, covering as much real ground as the 
present one of three years, might be put into two with- 
out infringing more than at present on the special pur- 
suits of the more classically disposed students, and with 
positive benefit to the whole body. As it is, any student 
who enters upon his Senior year at Yale has nominally 
gone over a greater amount of mathematics than one of 
■Kollol at Cambridge — twice as much at least ; but it does 
not follow that he really knows more or has enjoyed 
more of the peculiar benefits of mathematical training. 
I suspect that a man in the first class of the " Poll " has 
usually read mathematics to more profit than many of 
the " appointees," even of the " oration men " at Yale. 
Secondly, as regards the sciences in general. The 
fact that during the last year various courses of lectures 
are delivered on the natural and moral sciences, attend- 
ance on these courses not being oj)tional as at an Eng- 
lish University, but compulsory on all the students, will 
doubtless be considered by many persons a great point 
in favor of our Colleges. For my own part I look 
upon it as one of their greatest mistakes. The idea of 
being able to impart any adequate or permanent infor- 
mation to a large body of students in twenty-five lec- 
tures a-piece on a dozen difierent sciences, almost any 
one of which is work for a quarter of a man's lifetime, 
seems to me altogether visionary and chimerical. There 
are perhaps eight or ten of the hundred students present 
at each course who take an interest in the particular 
science, and derive some appreciable benefits from the 
lectures. It requires very little practical acquaintance 
with the working of the system to ascertain that most 



Five Years in an English University. 459 

of the auditors consider the lecture merely as part of 
a routine which they are obliged to go through. 

Let it be admitted, however, that to have attended a 
certain number of lectures on scientific subjects is one 
of the desirable accomplishments of a liberal education 
— nay, more, that it may sometimes evoke talent in the 
direction of some one science, which but for this acci- 
dental opportunity might never have been developed 
Let us have the lectures then, by all means; but tc 
make such lectures — for which no preparation is required 
and at which no notes are taken, which involve no read- 
ing before or after, and merely break in upon tht 
student's day for two or three isolated hours — to make 
them a substitute for hard work and mental training, has 
surely a perilous tendency to eifeminate the student's 
mind and give him desultory habits of thought. The 
youth who, under such a system of classical and mathe 
matical training as has been described, is ludicrousl} 
enough supposed to have acquired a sufficient knowledge 
of classics and mathematics, arrives at the end of his 
third year. Then the faculty virtually tell him, " You 
are a finished scholar and mathematician — all you have 
to do for the next year is to pack in all the sciences by 
means of lectures on each one three times a week 
during a term or two. All we ask of you is to attend 
a lecture of an hour's length three times a-day, and m 
the intervals you may read reviews and work them up 
into speeches and essays for your debating society." 
What should be an afternoon or evening amusement is 
made the work of the day. 

I think a careful inquirer will find that the great 
savans of Europe have not been trained on such princi- 
ples. Most of them have begun by being good mathe- 
maticians, and in many cases good scholars also ; and at 



460 Five Years in an English University, 

a maturer period of life they have brought well- 
disciplined minds to the particular study of their special 
pursuits. 

Thirdly, there is a prevailing opinion among our 
students (how far it is accepted in other quarters of the 
community I will not pretend to say) that, in conse- 
quence of being left so much to themselves during the 
last year of their course, and of not overvaluing the 
College course at any time, they have much leisure for 
the j)erusal of literature and general improvement of 
their minds and acquisition of miscellaneous knowledge, 
in which respect they have the advantage over the Eng- 
lish student. 

Now as respects literature this is altogether a mis- 
take. There certainly is a 'ki7id of literature in which 
our students are more at home than the English. They 
read more newspapers ; they read more magazines ; they 
read more political pamphlets ; they read a great many 
more novels ; they are well up in all that floating small 
literature of the day which an editor or periodical critic 
has to wade through as part of his business, and which 
any other man, especially any young man who wishes 
really to improve his mind, is much better without. 
But of the standard and classic literature of the lan- 
guage they do not read more or know more. Thev are 
not better acquainted with Shakspeare and Milton, with 
Wordsworth and Tennyson, with Bacon and Locke, 
with Gibbon and Robertson. They are not hy any 
means so well acquainted with the old English Drama- 
tists, the old English Divines, the essayists and political 
writers prior to Queen Anne, or the best ethical and 
logical writers of the present day. They take much of 
their knowledge at second hand from English reviews — 
reviews which the Cambridge man reads indeed with 



Five Years in an English Tlniversity. 461 

pleasure, but which from his previous acquaintance 
with the text and sources of them, he regards as sub- 
jects of his own criticism rather than authorities or 
oracles. They read rapidly, indiscriminately, and un- 
critically. 

As to any superiority in miscellaneous information 
which the American student may have over the English 
one, much of this exterior knowledge is not owing to 
his collegiate training or want of training at all, but to 
his home and vacation life, the greater variety of people 
he encounters in his ordinary intercourse with the world. 
So much of it as is attainable from books, the English 
student picks up later in life, when he is better able to 
make use of it. 

Fourthly, in all our Colleges English Composition 
and Public Speaking are encouraged in every possible 
way, both by the authorities and by associations of the 
students themselves, from the very beginning to the very 
end of the course. At an English University there is 
very little encouragement for either English Composition 
or Public Speaking. But to speak and write well, it is 
said, are the great aims and requisites of the minister, 
the lawyer, and the political man of any sort. They are 
the principal means of obtaining fame and power in a 
free country, and therefore are the highest intellectual 
ends of man ; and that is the best education which best 
prepares the student for them. 

Here we are arrived at the strong point of our Col- 
leges and Universities. For it is the immediate object 
of an American College practically (whatever it may be 
with some of its Faculty theoretically) to make the 
students fluent speakers and ready writers, just as it 
is the immediate object of an English University to turn 
out good scholars and mathematicians. And the object 



462 Five Years in an JEnglish University. 

is certainly accomplished : our Collegians learn to think 
on their legs and handle a pen with dexterity at a re- 
markably early age. The end proposed also, is a higher 
object to an ambitious young man. To aim at being a 
great author or orator, seems nobler and grander than 
to solve jDroblems or read Aristotle in the original. As 
this is a very important matter, let us examine it in de- 
tail, beginning with a view of the effect which the ad- 
mitted end of our collegiate education has upon our 
collegiate system as its workings are developed in one 
of the New England Universities. 

Almost from the beginning of their course, certainly 
from the third term of their Freshman year, all students 
ambitious of distinction are, by common consent, divided 
into two classes, called in their own phraseology scholars 
and writej's. The former class includes, by a singular 
extension of the term. Mathematicians as well as Classics 
— all, in short, who are prominent candidates for College 
honors ; the latter, those who undertake to distinguish 
themselves in English Com^oosition, either in the weekly 
readings of it before tutors and professors, the numer- 
ous debating societies among the students (into all of 
which orations and dissertations enter largely as part 
of the exercises), or the columns of the College Maga- 
zine. Sometimes a youth attempts to distinguish him- 
self in both departments, and the attempt when made is 
frequently successful ; but, as a general rule, the two 
classes of aspirants for fame are distinct. Closely con- 
nected with the " writers " are the speakers. Excellence 
as a debater, even when unaccompanied with a reputa- 
tion for writing well, is much prized, and the happy pos- 
sessor of both faculties is one of the College geniuses. 
The writers, including the speakers as subordinate to 
and in many cases coincident with them, are — and it is 



Five Years in an English University. 4G3 

to this I wish to call particular attention — infinitely more 
honored and esteemed and envied and looked up to by 
the great bulk of the students than the " scholars " or 
College appointees. The distinctlo7is conferred by the 
students on one another are more prized than the dis- 
tinctions conferred hy the College authorities on the stu- 
dents. So much so is this the case, that the prizes 
given by the Faculty for English Composition are not 
accepted among the students as tests of the best 
writers. 

This state of things is induced by several different 
causes. The Faculty promote it indirectly by the infe- 
riority of their Classical and Mathematical instruction, 
and by leaving the students so much to themselves 
during their last year. They promote it directly in 
more than one way : by giving " compositions" and '' dis- 
putes " and " declamations " so large a place in the 
College exercises of the second and third years, by 
making the right to deliver a sjDeech (at Junior Exhib- 
hibition or Commencement) the highest reward for pro- 
ficiency in College studies. 

But whatever the causes, an outsider — one who had 
not the previous bias of being brought up under the 
system — looking at it from an external point of view, 
would be apt to say, " Here is a most anomalous and 
abnormal condition of things for an academical institu- 
tion. The students have set up their judgment against 
that of their instructors. They declare that the means 
of education proposed for them by their teachers are 
the more ignoble, and those proposed for them by them- 
selves the more worthy. They make tliemselves judges 
beforehand of that which it is the business of their 
tutors to qualify them for judging of And then- in- 
structors receive these claims with assent — reluctant 



464 JFive Years in an English TIniversity. 

assent perhaps — but certainly not opposition, not even a 
negative one. What is this but self-condemnation on 
their part ? " 

It is not impossible, however, that the students, in- 
adequately provided for by their teachers, may have pro- 
vided for themselves a good means of education. Let 
us, therefore, examine the efiect of practice in English 
ComjDosition and Public Speaking, from an early age 
(say fifteen) as prominent elements of a libei-al edu- 
cation. 

First of all, it may reasonably be doubted whether 
the cultivation of two special talents which border 
closely on the domain of genius, and high excellence in 
which very few men can reasonably hope to attain, ought 
to be made the corner-stone of a general education. The 
very fact that it is a greater thing to be an orator than 
a scholar, is a positive reason for giving classics a prefei'- 
ence over oratory in a University course. Not only 
does your end answer the proposed conditions better, 
but you have more likelihood of arriving at it. You 
cannot make every third man in a class a great orator or 
author, though you may give him a fluency and confi- 
dence in talking platitudes or a knack of stringing 
together common-places on paper; you can make every 
third man of a class a respectable scholar. Were it 
possible to send forth every College graduate through- 
out the country an orator, it would not be desirable. It 
would be an unfortunate example of mental alchemy. 

"If all were gold then gold were no more wealth." 
Could we turn out every graduate a moderately good 
classic, we should give a taste and tone to the intellect 
of the country that would have a most favorable influ- 
ence on oratory and authorship. 

Let us look a little further. The immediate efiects 



Five Years in an English University. 465 

of the system we admit to be dazzling. The American 
student in his Senior year (when he may have attained 
tlie age of nineteen or thereabouts) has a readiness of 
tongue and pen, a confidence on his legs and a general 
dexterity of argument, uniDaralleled by his contempora- 
ries in any part of the world. He will make speeches 
and write essays that are astonishing for one of his 
years when compared with the productions of older 
men about him. He seems to have shot up into full 
mental stature before he has reached the limit of his 
bodily growth. In all mixed society he will throw an 
English youth of the same age utterly into the shade. 
But let us examine how far this precocious splendor has 
any solid aliment or permanent source. 

The Englishman's tardiness of development is in a 
great measure intentional. He is kept back to take a 
good start. He leaves school at the period of life when 
the American leaves College. Up to that time his 
studies have not been such as he can make an immediate 
display before the world with, but have rather been 
directed to strengthening and polishing his mind for 
future use. At the University his aim is to excel in the 
studies prescribed by the authorities of the place, not in 
something different from and partly antagonistic to 
these. However well-j^repared, he finds numbers in 
advance of him, he can never complain that he does 
not know what to learn or can find no one to teach him. 
Whatever his school reputation, his vanity is sure to be 
sjDeedily checked, and first of all by his private tutor, 
who " slangs " him for a mistake here or an inelegancy 
there. Then he makes mistakes in examinations also, 
and " loses marks." If a thriving public-school classic 
and ready to carry all before him in that line, he is still 
obliged to read mathematics, to feel his inferiority at 
20* 



466 Five Tears in an English University. 

first and perhaps at last to occupy a subordinate place in 
them. If he has cleverness there is no lack of room to 
display it, but it is necessary that he should work hard 
also ; there are great rewards of reputation as well as 
substantial emolument for the combination of intellect 
and industry, but none for disconnected and single exhi- 
bitions of brilliancy. The tendency of every influence 
about him is to make him cautious, self-critical and self- 
distrustful, careful and elaborate in his acquisitions, and 
consequently when he learns anything he takes hold of 
it as with a vice; when he says he knows it, you maybe 
sure he does. And when he becomes a high Wrangler 
or First Class man, he does not infer that he is therefore 
bound to be a great statesman or orator at once, but 
only that he has good talents, a fair power and regular 
habits of work, by which, if he conthmes to work, he is 
likely, in course of time, to succeed in his profession. 
Or if he fails to take the stand he hoped, he can never 
charge his examiners with unfairness. 

Our student, on the contrary, is from the first sur- 
rounded with influences calculated to excite and flatter 
his vanity. If he conies to College from a good school 
in New York or Boston, the chances are that he is set 
under a tutor who knows less of the rudiments of 
scholarship than himself Hence the first lesson he 
learns is to despise his teachers. He hears it said all 
about him that the College appointees are for the most 
part poor dull fellows who never do anything to dis- 
tinguish themselves in after life, that an Appointment is 
only worth taking as a mere extra if it can be got without 
taking much trouble for it, and that writing and speak- 
ing are the proper objects of his ambition. And the 
opinion respecting the appointees is partly true ; a suc- 
cessful mediocrity has no great charm for a boy who is 



Five Years in an English University. 4G7 

clever, and well enough prepared for something better. 
Thus he is led to depreciate the honors given by the 
authorities, and seek for distinction in another quarter. 
He aspires after those rewards which are in the gift of 
his fellow-students, and which he himself has a share in 
bestowing on others. He becomes habituated to making 
speeches and reading compositions before audiences of 
from thirty to a hundred, whose capacity to be critical is 
not equal to their disposition, and whose disposition is 
modified by their mutual interest; now and then he 
makes an unusually showy effort, and is apj^lauded for 
it. His friends and acquaintances have not the same 
ability to find faults in his performance that a tutor has 
to correct the exercise of a pupil, nor does their position 
enable them to sjieak so freely without the risk of giving 
offence or incurring the suspicion of jealousy. If he 
succeeds in winning these popular honors, they are 
almost the exact coimterpart of similar ones in maturer 
life. He writes smart articles in the College magazine 
and is made editor of it ; he gets a reputation for speak- 
ing in his debating society and is elected president, just 
as he might get sent to the state legislature when a man, 
for speaking well at jDublic meetings. If he fails, his 
failure may be owing not to want of merit, but to want 
of popularity, or to intrigue and jealousy, of which there 
is always a great deal at work. Thus he brings the 
great world into the academic shades, and aims at being 
a public man while he should as yet be but a hard-work- 
ing student. 

And here his unguided and indiscriminate reading 
involves him in a double error. Not only is the object 
of his aim prematurely high, but the ideal of that object 
becomes continually lowered for him. IJe does not ap- 
preciate wliat he seeks to be. Though professedly 



468 Five Years iti an JEnglish Tlnwersity. 

working to form a style, he does not properly study the 
best models or confine himself to them. He swallows 
a great deal of second and third-rate matter. He 
acquires a childish fondness for metaphors more or less 
mixed, and generally for all sorts of figures, as if they 
were the sole test and standard of excellence in com- 
position. In short he aims 2itfine writing, and sits down 
not to express his ideas on a subject, but to write a piece. 
So, in oratory, he knows little, except at second-hand, of 
Demosthenes and Cicero ; rather more but not too much 
about Burke. He does not confine himself to the best 
models of his own country. He possesses well-thumbed 
copies of Webster's speeches and Everett's Orations, 
but he will turn from these at any time to the last im- 
perfectly-reported stump speech — especially if he can 
utilize anything from it at the debating society. A 
secret conviction is generated in his mind that he could 
do nearly as well in their place as many of the men 
whose performances he reads — which may not be so very 
far from the truth — and here again his vanity is gratified. 
Moreover as his experience leads him to suspect that 
people are much in the habit of talking and writing 
about things of which they have but small knowledge, 
he comes to the conclusion that very small knowledge 
of a subject is necessary to qualify a man for talking and 
writing about it — he will consider himself prepared to 
discuss any point in metaphysics, for instance, after 
going through a course of Steioarfs Outlines. The real 
acquisitions of a Senior Class in a New England Col- 
lege bear a lamentably small ratio to their conceit of 
knowledge. 

One thing they certainly have mastered — the art of 
electioneering. They have learned a great deal of hu- 
man nature, as regards the way in which men can be 



Fiiie Years in an English University. 469 

" got round " and votes influenced. One of our large 
Colleges is an excellent school for a professed politician ; 
whether this fact is particularly honorable to them, or 
whether that occupation is a particularly honorable and 
desirable one for all and many students, may admit of a 
doubt. 

This brings us to another evil springing directly from 
the early and constant practice of writing and speaking. 
It encourages a sojMstic Jiahit, most dangerous for a 
very young man to acquire, since it puts him in an un- 
fortunate frame of mind for the reception of knowledge 
and truth. I use the word sophistic not without direct 
reference to its origin, and to the intellectual training of 
the young Athenians by their itinerant professors — a 
training not far from having its counterpart among our- 
selves. What was this system as we deduce it from 
contemporary writers, especially Plato, who, indeed, 
often illustrates it himself unintentionally in his own 
course of argument ? The Sophist was a professor of 
mental and moral philosophy; he taught his pupils to 
argue on all points of metaphysics and of ethics, in- 
cluding politics — to argue readily, dexterously, cap- 
tiously, the discussion often declining into the merest 
hair-splitting and verbal quibbling. Victory, not truth — 
to eifect a presumption rather than to secure the acqui- 
sition of knowledge, was the end of debate. The benefit 
proposed, sometimes without an attempt at disguise, to 
the pupil was, that he should be able to humbug the 
people and get on in the world (that is the plain Saxon 
of itj, which he was to accomplish by being always ready 
to talk about anything, and never at a loss for a plausible 
argument. 

Our young men leave college imbued with debating 
society formulae. Their very slang is redolent of the 



470 Five Years in an English University. 

society — its phrases are the phrases of their every-day 
life. If three or four of them are in a room together, 
one cannot say to another, " Smith, shut the door, 
please," without putting it into some such form as " I 
move Mr. Smith shut the door," or " I move Mr. Smith 
he a committee of one to shut that door." They are al- 
ways ready for an argument, and will taclcle a man of 
any age if there is a chance of a discussion. Recondite 
disquisitions are not to their purpose ; but any popular 
question, such as a man can talk of from review and 
newspaper reading, they delight to raise a controversy 
about. They evince a great dexterity in taking excep 
tions, and are as quick to find instances against the gen- 
eralizations of others as to draw imperfect generaliza- 
tions themselves. 

Many years ago the father of a young Englishman 
who had distinguished himself at the University, and 
given other indications of uncommon talent, having des- 
tined his son for public life, wrote to a friend, an eminent 
Scotch advocate and politician, for advice how the young 
man should be trained to make him a successful orator. 
The answer, which was long preserved in the family, 
contained these suggestions among others, — " He must 
seek the conversation of older men, and talk at them 
without being afraid of them ; he must talk a great 
deal merely for the sake of talking ; he must talk too 
much in company." 

The person who related this to me was most struck 
with the apparent paradox of the last clause — the lu- 
dicrous idea of the future orator never talking enough 
until he had talked too much. I was impressed by a 
different thought — the exactness with which our colle- 
gians anticipate this advice for themselves and carry it 
out. They talk at older men without being afraid of 



Five Years hi an English University. 471 

them / they talk a great deal for mere practice in talk- 
ing ; they talk too much in company. 

Now the young man to whom this advice was given 
had the foundation of a thorough education whereon to 
build his rhetorical superstructure, varied knowledge to 
adorn, and a superior intellect to illuminate it. He 
stai'ted on a large capital in every point of view. If 
therefore he acquired a sometimes inconvenient habit of 
talking too much in company, there was still a proba- 
bility that he would say much worth hearing ; if his 
conversational sparrings with older men involved some 
violation of modesty, they Avere at any rate not likely to 
be disfigured by egregious errors. But when a youth 
acquires this talking facility and propensity without a 
proper training and knowledge to support it — when most 
of his authorities are at third or fourth-hand, hearsay, 
or the last newspaper article, or the confused recollec- 
tion of what was at first imperfectly read, it follows in- 
evitably that he must make many mistakes which his 
verbal dexterity will be continually brought into requi- 
sition to protect. And from this combination of in- 
accuracy of detail with facility of expression results one 
of our great national faults, a tendency to defend rather 
than prevent mistakes j plausibility in explaining away 
or glossing over an error rather than caution in guard- 
ing against the probability of its occurrence. 

This feeling which, like the Spartan's conception of 
honesty, or the Parisian's of conjugal fidelity, j^laces the 
evil of error, not in the original commission, but in the 
subsequent conviction of it, stands directly in the way 
of individual and national improvement. Its favorite 
mode of argument is the ignoratio elenchi, the ignoring 
of the main point in dispute, and joining issue on some 
irrelevant accident ; of it and its favorite form of this 



472 Five Years in an English University. 

mode is the tii qtioque^ a digression upon some personal 
demerit of the opponent.* Thus both literature and 
politics are debased, and honest criticism or difference 
of oiDinion converted into matter of individual quarrel. 
After all, the strongest objection to this literary pre- 
cocity is that it defeats its own object. The ambitious 
student begins at the wrong end. He acquires manner 
before matter, and has a style in advance of his thoughts. 
His untimely blossoms do not fructify. His graces and 
ornaments of trope and metaphor, like the flowers 
which a child sticks into the ground to make a garden, 
grow faded and lose vitality for want of root and nutri- 
ment. He repeats his ideas, or those of others. t He 
wrote fluently at eighteen, at twenty-six he writes a trifle 
perhaps more fluently but in no respect better. Some 
years ago, I heard an Italian say that his country pro- 
duced many young artists of great promise, but none 
of them ever came to maturity. I thought at the time 
it was pretty much the same with our College geniuses. 
The class below me at Yale, out of a hundred members, 
had thirty poets — that is to say, men who had written 
and pitblished verses. This is an extreme instance ; but 
the number of " great writers " in my time (eleven years 
ago) at that College was very large. The number who 
have since attained any substantial literary distinction I 
could count on one hand and have some fingers to spare. 

* As if, for instance, one should say, by way of invalidating 
any of the conclusions in this book, " The author was at an Eng- 
lish University himself, and does not afford us a favorable speci- 
men of a Cambridge graduate, or appear to have profited much by 
his stay there." 

f Barefaced copying from books and reviews in their Compo- 
sitions is familiar to our students, as much so as " skinning " 
their mathematical examples. It is in a manner forced upon them, 
by being expected to lorite before they have anything to icrite 
about. 



Five Years in an English University. 473 

The best education has its limits, and very marked 
ones. No physical training can develop an ordinary man 
into a giant or a Hercules. No intellectual training can 
make a genius. The error of our system is that it makes 
a great many ordinary men suppose themselves to be 
geniuses, while at the same time it does not develope 
their ordinary abilities in the best way. 

I have often been surprised (until from the frequency 
of the phenomenon it ceased to surprise me) at the 
altered impressions made on me by these College 
geniuses in after life. I do not refer to their position or 
want of position in the world, so much as to the effect 
which their conversation had upon me. They seemed to 
have come hack to me, if I may be allowed to use a 
sporting phrase. Their remarks seemed trivial and 
commonplace, their ideas limited, till I was tempted to 
look down upon those whom I used to look up to. And 
more than one such man has confessed to me his regret 
at not having made better use of his College opportuni- 
ties, and devoted himself more attentively to the legiti- 
mate studies of the place; and has owned his reluctant 
conviction that the time which he anticipated was 
borrowed at usurious interest, and the ajDparent gain had 
turned out a real loss. 

The truth of what I have asserted, namely that our 
literary precocity overreaches itself, may be brought 
home very briefly to every unprejudiced and capable 
man. We accustom our youth to the practice of Com- 
position much sooner than the English do theirs. Do we 
on the whole lorite as well as the English ? Will any 
candid and well informed man say, from his heart, that 
the average of our books published every year is equal 
in quality to the average of theirs, or that the average 
quality of our newspaper and periodical literature is 



474 Five Years in an English University. 

anywhere near theirs ? I think every man lolio can af- 
ford to have a conscience will admit that there is a 
difference in their favor, and a greater difference than 
can be accounted for by the absence of an International 
Copyright Law. Yet, in order to justify our practice, 
we should expect as a result a very deckled superiority 
to the English — unless we suppose an original inferiority 
of material. But the natural quickness and cleverness 
of the American mind are universally admitted. Our 
most bigoted enemies have never charged us with in- 
capacity or stupidity. Our keenness of intelligence is 
all but proverbial among the nations. The inference 
seems unavoidable that there is something better in the 
English mode of training. 

But our public speaking ! There we, have them ! 
There we are unapproachable ! Certainly this is our 
peculiar national excellence. Our few real and great 
orators will sustain a comparison with the few real and 
great orators of Europe ; this much we may safely claim 
for them, and this is as much as will be conceded by the 
rest of the world. But it is in the general diffusion of 
a certain rhetorical facility, in the ability of every edu- 
cated American to think and talk on his legs, that our 
superiority to Europeans consists. And doubtless it is 
a very convenient accomplishment for a gentleman to 
possess, one which an American is often proud of abroad, 
or before foreigners at home. But (leaving out of con- 
sideration so much of the price we pay for it as has been 
dilated on in the last few pages) it may be doubted 
whether the practical benefits accompanying its exercise 
are very great or altogether unmixed ; whether our na- 
tional speech-making talent does not, in some situations, 
cause an immense waste of time and ruinous delay of 
business, while in others it mocks both speakers and 



Five Years in an English TJniversity. 475 

hearers with a delusive show of improvement. As to 
the combinations of writing and oratory, made to serve 
indifferently for either — the Myot ETTidsinTtKol, so much in 
vogue among us under the different names of " Ad- 
dresses," " Discourses," " Orations " and " Lectures " — 
they are usually undertaken because the author received 
a flattering invitation and felt bound to put together an 
hour's worth of something — or because it was an easy 
and jjleasant way of making pocket money — or because 
it Avas a cheap and convenient way of advertising some- 
thing that he meant to bring out in book shape after- 
wards, and so make money of twice — or for any reason 
rather than an earnest desire and intent to teach the au- 
dience anything or make them think; an attendance at 
such Addresses, etc., is as much mental dissipation as the 
Frenchman's theatre or the German's concert. 

There is one evil result of our national over-encour- 
agement to oratory Avhich has not yet been touched on ; 
but to this it will be more convenient to recur in the 
next chapter. 

[The larger debating societies at Yale have recently 
died out, but this is not so much a change for the better 
as it looks. They have succumbed, not to the pressure 
of the regular college studies but to the multiplication 
of the smaller and more secret societies. 

I have been informed that at Harvard the societies 
never occupied the same prominent position as at Yale. 
If true, this is a good a priori argument in favor of the 
Harvard claim to superiority in the more regular aca- 
demic business.] 



476 Five Years in an English University. 



THE ADVANTAGES OF CLASSICAL STUDIES, PARTICU- 
LARLY I2sr REFEEE]S"CE TO THE YOUTH OF OUR COUJST- 
TRY. 

" Haec studia adolescentiam alunt, senectutem oblectant, senundas res or- 
nant, adversia perfugium et solatium praebent, delectant domi non impediunt 
foris." — Cic. PRO Akchia. 

" The cultivated world, up to the present day, has been bound tog-ether, and 
each generation bound to the preceding by living upon a common intellectual " 
estate. They have shared in a common development of thought because they 
have understood each other. Their standard examples of poetry, eloquence, 
history, criticism, grammar, etymology, have been a universal bond of sym- 
pathy, however diverse might be the opinions which prevailed respecting any 
of these examples. All the civilized world has been one intellectual nation, and 
it is this which has made it so great and pi-osperous a nation." — Whewell on 
University Education. 

WE have thus far proceeded on the supposition that 
classical studies form a necessary and important 
part of a liberal education. But there is a class of per- 
sons (not A^ery numerous or influential perhaps, but still 
too much so to be passed over in silence) who would 
join issue with me on this first principle. They would 
deny the utility of classics as a general collegiate study, 
and aflirm that the error of our Colleges is, not the 
classical deficiency of their course, but their admission 
of Latin and Greek at all as a necessary element of that 
course. 

One is certainly tempted to take a high tone in re- 
plying to such objections, and to treat them very sum- 
marily. Our first impulse is to tell the objectors that 
the almost unanimous voice of the civilized world has 



Five Years m an English University. 4:11 

established the study of the classics as a requisite ele- 
ment of the best education, and that for us to act differ- 
ently would be to proclaim and make ourselves boors. 
But as there are those with Avhom prescription has no 
weight but is rather an objection, we will try the study 
in question on its own intrinsic merits, first examining 
and rebutting the charges brought against it, and then 
asserting its positive excellencies. We have a right to 
call on the other side to make the attack, as we are in 
possession. 

There are one or two moral objections which it may 
be as well to begin with disposing of First, it is said 
that the ancient authors are corrupting and unfit for 
young men to study or read, on account of the occa- 
sional indecencies to be found in them and the debasing 
mythology which they uphold. Now as regards the 
mythology, that any one was ever injured in his faith or 
morals by reading that Jupiter married his sister and 
had a number of other wives in addition seems hardly a 
matter to be argued seriously. If such things suggest 
any thoughts to a youth they are most likely to impress 
him with the necessity there was for a revelation, when 
he sees that the wisest heathen nations could make no 
better religion for themselves than such stuff as this. 
As to the grossness of the ancients, if we are to lay 
down as a rule that a young man is to peruse nothing 
which a young lady in white muslin may not read aloud 
to a family circle, we shall make great havoc among the 
literature of all languages, our own not excepted. 
What does harm in most cases is not grossness but 
voluptuousness^' and there is very little voluptuous 
writing in the ancients. It would hardly be overstating 
the case to say that of the properly classical authors, 
Ovid is the only one who represents vice in a luscious 



478 Five Years in an English University. 

and attractive form. Three chapters of almost any 
French novel, or two hours' walk on the Boulevards of 
Paris, will put a young man in more danger than all the 
Aristophanes and Juvenal he can read in a year. Yet a 
father who prevented his son learning French on account 
of the risk his morals might run from an acquaintance 
with Gautier or Paul de Kock, would be deemed by 
most people over-scrupulous, and a tourist who should 
fear to visit Paris because there are unchaste pictures in 
the shop-windows there, would incur not altogether un- 
deserved laughter. The student is not compelled to 
wade through any of the filth he sometimes meets 
with — nay, with expurgated editions he may not even 
be aware of its existence. For my own part, however, 
I think it not only permissible but actually desirable 
that he should read something at least of the very worst 
that is to be found in ancient literature. It is a dis- 
gusting hut wholeso'm,e preventive dose against intellect 
worship. Most conscientiously can I say that nothing 
has ever more strongly impressed me with the utter in- 
competency of the highest intellectual refinement, un- 
aided by true religion, to preserve man from the lowest 
degradation of vice, than studying Athenian life in Plato 
and Aristophanes, and marking how these " gentlemen 
and scholars," as they called themselves {xapievreg and 
KaTioKayaOoi), these men of cultivated minds and refined 
manners, gave themselves up to shameless depravity. 

There is also an opinion existing in certain quarters, 
which however we more usually see insinuated than 
openly expressed, that Classical studies have an anti- 
republican tendency. Any well defined argumeiit to 
this effect I never recollect to have read, but much 
vague supposition and declamation ; still it is easy to 
conceive some reasons, such as they are, in support of 



I'^ive Years in an English University. 479 

the opinion. The Toryism of an historian like Mitford, 
or a commentator like Mitchell ; of Blackwood's Maga- 
zine, also famous for its Classical articles; of the Uni- 
versity of Oxford, and nearer home the marked old 
Federal leanings of the majority of students in our 
eastern and northern Colleges, might be pressed into 
the service and make a plausible show. But there is a 
much stronger array of cases on the other side. 
Against the name of Mitford may be \)\\t those of 
Thirlwall, Arnold, and Grote, the first two independent 
Whigs, the last a Radical. If the great Athenian 
satirist found a Tory Commentator in Mitchell, he has 
found a liberal one in Walsh, who is actually at this 
moment I believe a resident in if not a citizen of our 
republic. The Edinburgh is a fair set off to Blackwood. 
If Oxford seems sunk in antediluvian Jacobitism, 
Trinity, the great Classical College of Cambridge, has 
always been a notoriously Whig corporation. That the 
majority of our own College Students incline not 
merely to conservatism but to obsolete Federal politics, 
on which account our Colleges are not over-popular 
with the Democratic party, is true ; but the reason of it 
is substantially the same with that which causes the 
German students to be the constant terror of their des- 
potic or semi-despotic governments, or which made the 
mass of English Undergraduates liberal when the popu- 
lar sentiment of England was Tory, and now makes 
them conservative when the popular spirit is liberal. 
All educated young men have a tendency to be in oppo- 
sition, and to criticize the existing order of things ; they 
see (not perhaps without some exaggeration) its faults, 
to which they have not yet become habituated by custom 
and experience, and they acquire a strong though tem- 
porary bias towards the other extreme. Kor is this to 



480 Five Years in an English University. 

be regretted, when we consider the tendency of all gov- 
ernmental institutions to intensify their own abuses. 

That Classical reading helps to make students hos- 
tile to ultra- radicalism, ochlocracy, and socialism, may at 
once be admitted, inasmuch as it helps to make them 
gentlemen and sound-minded men ; and this is a result 
to boast of rather than apologize for. 

But the objections to the study of Greek and Latin 
are mostly founded on intellectual grounds. I shall not 
pretend to take them up in the order of their popularity 
or plausibility, but only to enumerate and answer them 
as they occur. Some of the more familiar have a cer- 
tain amount of truth in them; but it is derived from 
and tells against, not Classical studies in themselves, but 
the imperfect way in which they are pursued at our Col- 
leges. Thus we hear of the painful drudgery to which 
Collegians are subjected, their repugnance to crabbed 
roots and musty Lexicons, and the cruelty of forcing on 
their fresh and ardent minds such uncongenial occupa- 
tion, their want of all interest in their text-books, etc. 
Now this may be the case with ns, but the very last com- 
plaint of a Cambridge Don would be that his pupils did 
not take interest enough in their Classical studies.* He 
would rather be afraid of their taking too much interest 
in them, to the exclusion of other branches of mental 
discipline in which he wished them to be exercised. 
Again it is said, and nowhere more frequently than 
among College under-graduates themselves, that those 
vvho take high College Honors do not usually make a 
figure in the world afterwards; whence it is inferred 
either that Classics stultify the men who study them, or 

* Such of them, that is, as will study at all. Under any sys- 
tem there will unfortunately always be a class with whom any 
study is a weariness to the flesh. 



Five Years in an English University. 481 

that they so disagree with clever youth that these refuse 
to make progress in them. This again may be true here, 
but it is certainly the very reverse of the case in Eng- 
land, where the number of men who have distinguished 
themselves at the bar, in the Senate, or in certain walks 
of literature, after takmg good degrees at the Uni- 
versity, is wont to be dwelt on with pride by the de- 
fender of the old system; while the opponent of it 
takes a very diiferent stand from the depreciator of 
Classical training here, and, admitting the fature success 
of distinguished Collegians, ti'ies to show that the se- 
quence was not altogether a consequence. So, too, we 
hear the question triumphantly put, " What use can 
there be in our young men taking several years to learn 
what they forget in a much shorter time after leaving 
College ? " It may be true — I fear it is true, that very 
many of our students forget in eighteen months what 
they have been supposed to learn in three, four, or five 
years; that there is very often not that difference ob- 
servable between the graduate and the non-graduate of 
thirty which there ought to be — or in fact no observable 
difference at all in their Classical knowledge. But it is 
not so with the English, the French, or the German stu- 
dent in after life. He remembers and knows what he 
studied at College, better than he does anything else ex- 
cept his immediate daily occupation, whatever that may 
be, in which he is necessai'ily more freshly prepared than 
in any other subject. To say of the majority of foreign 
University graduates that their Classics are to them but 
" a foggy reminiscence of dull days wasted and dry 
tasks slighted," would be simply not true. And if the 
majority of our graduates forget their Classics in so 
short a time, it is because they have never really learned 
them. The faidt is in the imperfect and inadequate 
21 



482 Five Years in an English University. 

mode of teaching, not in the thing taught or supposed to 
he taught. 

We now proceed to the arguments against classical 
studies, which, if well founded, would hold good against 
them, however well taught. That which may be said to 
include, or at least to lie at the root of all the others, is 
that they do not form the basis of a practical education 
— that they do not contribute to such an education in 
any degree — that they do not make practical men. 

To appreciate this objection it will be necessary to 
examine what is meant by a " practical man," and how 
far the making of practical men ought to be the object 
of a liberal education. 

The sort of " practical man " who most ostentatiously 
appropriates the name to himself is also, perhaps, the 
variety most usually held up as a type of the species. 
He is the " self-educated " man, which is very much to 
his credit so long as he does not therefore pretend to 
know better than men who have learned a great deal 
more by the help of others. He is also a " self-made " 
man generally, and " the architect of his own fortune," 
which is also highly creditable to him so long as he does 
not insist on being able to do everything because he has 
advanced his own position in the world. Sharp-witted, 
industrious, and indefatigable, he makes a capital elec- 
tioneerer or agitator of any sort, a first-rate hand to 
" keep the pot boiling," whatever the fuel may be ; and 
if you can attach him as jackal to the right sort of lion, 
may do a fair amount of good. But the worst is that 
he is pretty sure to set up for a lion himself, and then 
his want of ballast, of foundation, of theoretic knowl- 
edge, of esoteric knowledge of any one thing, is con- 
tinually leading his quickness into sad blunders, and 
causing a great part of his energy to be misdirected. 



Five Years in an English University. 483 

He has overcome the emi")irical difficulties of his own 
case, but for all philosophical investigation he is utterly- 
untrained. He has a vast conceit of his own acquisi- 
tions, and a very inadequate conception of the limits of 
human capacity. Hence this man, whose boast it is to 
be eminently practical., runs off instantly into the wild- 
est speculations. He cuts up society as one would cut 
up a pie, and proposes to pull down the fabric of ages 
with less ceremony than a careful landholder would ob- 
serve in removing an old fence. Such a person may 
possibly be the best that could have been made out of 
his antecedents ; but it by no means follows that men 
with better antecedents should aim at being like him. 
He is the result of necessity making the best of a bad 
bargain ; not a desirable product of instruction, or a 
model for teacher or student. He does not come xip to 
the poet's definition of a man. He may be a being of 
very large discourse, but he cannot look before and after. 

Such men it is not the tendency of classical studies 
to turn out. So much the better for those studies. 

In another not unfrequent sense of the term, 2. prac- 
tical inan means a good man of business, that is, a man 
sharp at a bargain and clever at making money. Doubt- 
less there are means of education more favorable to the 
development of this faculty than the study of Latin and 
Greek. If we take two boys at sixteen, and send -one 
to a college and the other to a counting-house, it is not 
improbable that in eight years the latter may be making 
his thousands of dollars for the other's hundreds. And 
if any father believes that making money is the great 
end and object of civilized man, and means to bring up 
his family accordingly, it certainly will be a Avaste of 
time to teach his son classics. They might, perhaps, di- 
vert some portion of his time from the ledger. 



484 Five Years in an English University. 

But if it be asserted or insinuated that a classical 
education makes young men dreamy, or visionary, or 
idle, that it dis250ses them to shirk their daily duties, 
prevents them from acquiring regular business habits, or 
interferes with the exercise and development of their 
common-sense in the. ordinary affairs of life — all this, I 
positively deny. On the contrary, I am convinced by 
my own case, as well as that of others whom I have ob- 
served, that it has great efficacy in giving even a con- 
stitutionally idle man regular habits of work. The care 
and accuracy which it inculcates and the taste which it 
forms, are often of great practical benefit. If classics 
were better and more generally stiidied among us, one 
of the very first effects would be that the Congressional 
and State Legislature speeches would be cut down to 
less than half their present dimensions, to the corres- 
ponding gain of the nation's time and money. 

But the objection comes up under another form. 
The study of the ancient languages does not, it is said, 
positively tend to unfit men for practical life, but it im- 
pairs their efficacy by occupying the time in which they 
might acquire other more useful branches of knowledge. 
Thus, to teach our young men Latin and Greek, it is 
said, is to teach them loords — they should not learn 
words but things. Such a saying may be very effective 
when artfully introduced as an obiter dictum^ but it will 
hardly bear examination and discussion. That our stu- 
dents ought not to learn words and use them as the 
substitutes for, instead of the expression of thoughts, 
is at once admitted ; it was one of our arguments against 
the " speaking and wi'iting " system. But that they 
should learn the meaning of words is of the iitmost im- 
portance towards their understanding the meaning of 



Five Years in an JEJnglish University. 485 

things, for the latter often depends on the former.* A 
large proportion of the disputes among men are use- 
lessly prolonged, if not originally caused, by their not 
comprehending one another at the outset, so that there 
is a deep philosophy in the common euphemism of mis- 
understanding for quarrel. Some of the most ordinary 
terms in every-day discussion — chwch^ state, civiliza- 
tion, society, aristocracy, democracy — let any man con- 
sider the variety of complex ideas involved in every 
one of them — the difterent definitions that different 
people of his own acquaintance would give of every one 
of them — and then say that the knowledge of the mean- 
ing of words is not of the greatest value. Did I wish 
to throw dust in the eyes of a body of readers or hear- 
ers, I should not wish for a better set of men to operate 
on than such as had only been sedulous to leai-n things 
■ — isolated, unsystematized facts, and had overlooked the 
meaning of words as a trivial knowledge. I think I 
could manoeuvre with definitions and shift premises so 
that they should be satisfactorily deceived without a suspi- 
cion of it. The aj^prehension of scattered facts is no 
more an education than loose bricks and mortar are a 
house ; they are but rubbish covering the earth till you 
know how to put them together. Or does a hnoxcledge 
of things mean that a man is to be able to do as many 
things as possible for himself, to be not only his own 
waiter and wood-sawyer, but his own doctor and law- 
yer, and washerwoman, perhaps ! This is one of the 
utilitarian schemes of education ; if it could be carried 
out, the immediate efiect would be to render men inde- 

* For example, the reader may rem.em.ber having seen in a pre- 
vious chapter how the name of a piece of church furniture in- 
volved one of the staple differences between Protestantism and 
Popery. 



486 Five Years in an JEJnglish Unwersity. 

pendent of one another, and thus dissolve society (which 
is by its very constitution a system of mutual depen- 
dence) into its rudest elements. (Another incidental 
proof that our disci^Dles of " progress " are progressing 
in the way exactly calculated to re-barbarize mankind.) 
But we shall be more likely to come at a clear under- 
standing of the matter by inquiring what studies those 
who object to a classical course would substitute in our 
Colleges for it, as " practical " ones. And here let us 
premise by observing that if we are to turn out the 
Classics on this account, we must, in consistency, send 
the mathematics after them^ for every objection that can, 
on practical grounds, he urged against classics applies to 
mathematics in a tenfold degree. They are far more dis- 
tasteful to the majority of students, more engrossing in 
their demands on the attention, harder to acquire, easier 
to lose — a boy who has read Homer well at school will 
know it tolei-ably all his life, but a good geometrician 
will soon cease to be perfect even in his Euclid if he 
does not keep constantly refreshing his knowledge — 
they are utterly useless in immediate application to our 
every- day pursuits. There is indeed a popular presump- 
tion of their utility, ai'ising from the fact that arithmetic, 
which is the introduction to them, is also concerned in 
making money, but that is about the amount of the con- 
nection between them and practical life. The classics 
may seem to have little enough to do with it, but they 
have obviously more than that. The author wants a 
motto for a chapter, the preacher has occasion to refer 
to the " original Greek " of a passage, the lawyer finds a 
scrap of Latin in one of his " under-done pie-crust " 
colored books, or the clerk in the newspaper which con- 
stitutes the bulk of his literary relaxation, the orator 
rounds off a handsome period with a quotation from 



Five Years in an JEnglish University. 487 

Cicero, which the reporter makes two or three mistakes 
ill taking down and the compositor two or three more 
in setting up. But what parson, or lawyer, or mercliant, 
or politician, or essayist, or poet, is ever called upon in 
the coui-se of his ordinary life and business to write out 
an equation, or draw a hyperbole, or prove the parallelo- 
gram of forces ? If the classics are to go overboard as 
not sufficiently practical, the mathematics must keep 
them company. 

What then is left for our students to study ? " The 
literature of their own language for one thing," says 
one. Now it has been already intimated that no class 
of men are better read in the valuable parts of English 
literature than the hard-working classical students at 
Cambridge, and no men better prepared to profit by 
that reading, which is to them a relaxation from, not a 
substitute for, severer studies. But if we put Belles 
Lettre ; in the place of mental discipline, if we admit as 
part of the student's hardest work the reading of Eng- 
lish authors with a view to their beauties, and the hear- 
ing lectures on them, then he will seek his relaxation in 
the trashies' and idlest reading. Just as surely as the 
greater includes the less, will the presence of a classical 
element in our College course do more than its absence 
to secure a proj)er acquaintance on the part of our stu- 
dents with sucli vernacular literature as is worthy to be 
read. 

The natural sciences are insisted on by some as cal- 
culated above all other studies to improve the mind as 
well as impart useful knowledge. The immense value 
of these sciences to the world no rational man will deny. 
Their contribution to the jjrogress of civilization it be- 
comes no man to underrate. But their desirability as the 
predominant and original element of a liberal education 



488 Five Years in an English University. 

by no means follows as a matter of course. The mere 
popular rudiments — the experiment and diagram part of 
most of them, are sufficiently interesting to enter among 
the relaxations of the industrious pupil, who will indeed 
be pretty sure to acquire a knowledge of them some- 
where whether they are taught at College or not,* but 
do not deserve the name of serious study ; for the wil- 
fully idle, they are no more temptations to study than 
classics or mathematics would be, but rather a confirma- 
tion of their idle habits. But to attain or ajiproach a 
mastery over any one science is a very different matter, 
and falls to the lot of a few. The details demand an 
uncommon faculty for and interest in the minute obser- 
vation of nature. The systematic comprehension and 
colligation of these details I will not say absolutely re- 
quires, but certainly is very much aided by a thorough 
training of the mind according to the more orthodox 
methods. We have already in another place adverted 
to the folly of supposing that a youth learns half-a-dozen 
sciences by attending a brief course of lectures on each. 
But let the time be as much extended as by the substi- 
tution under consideration it would be, so that some- 
thing more like a knowledge of these sciences might be 
acquired ; still I maintain that a young man whose edu- 
cation has been composed wholly or chiefly of instruc- 

* This is a point seldom taken into account, but telling very 
strongly against most of the substitutes proposed for the classics 
— Belles-Lettres, popular results of science, even the modern 
languages. It is very much more probable that young men who 
begin by studying the classics "will pick up these other things, in- 
cidentally or subsequently, than that, if they begin with these 
things they will be willing or able to learn Latin and Greek at a 
later period. The information will come after the discipline much 
faster and easier than the discipline after the information. 



Five Years in an English University. 489 

tion in the natural sciences, is not a liberally edncated 
man. He will be apt to have acquired most illiberal 
opinions of all other branches of learning. He will be 
likely to underrate outrageously (even to ignoring its 
value entirely) all knoAvledge except such as is based on 
observation and experiment, or inductive reasoning and 
(real or suj^posed) tangible proof He will be in danger 
of doubting all fixity in principles of knowledge, or 
principles of moral and religious truth — of supposing 
that " ethics and theology are progressive sciences" as 
much as chemistry or geology. He may even be led to 
despise the standard literature of the civilized world, 
because much of it was written before the discovery of 
gravitation or the invention of the steam engine ; as if 
men w^ent to a poet or dramatist to learn astronomy or 
mechanics from him — a misconception of uses so ludi- 
crous that were there not instances of it on record, it 
well might be deemed incredible. 

Mental Philosophy has been proposed as a substi- 
tute, sometimes for Classics, sometimes for Mathe- 
matics. The value of Metaphysical studies I would not 
for a moment underrate, but it seems to me evident that 
they should be considered a crowning pinnacle, not a 
corner-stone of liberal education. Their abstruse na- 
ture, the logical clearness of conception which they de- 
mand, the variety of illustration from other sciences and 
branches of learning which they not only admit but re- 
quire, the instability of systems and the want of uni- 
versally admitted truths to foiand systems on respecting 
them — all appear to point out that a thorough prepara- 
tory training in both Classics aiid 3Iathematics is requi- 
site to their being pursued with advantage. 

The Modern Languages are frequently proposed as a 
substitute for the Ancient, and of all substitutes have 
21* 



490 Five Years in an English TIniversity. 

the strongest claim. Their study appears to differ from 
that of the Classics more in degree than in kind. It 
teaches universal grammar, verbal analysis, accurate com- 
parison, discrimination of differences — though to a less 
extent ; it enforces the perusal of good models of taste, 
though not so good ones ; it puts the students into com- 
munication with the intellect of other nations, though 
not of other ages ; while, at the same time, its immedi- 
ate results to the traveller or the inhabitant of a metro- 
politan city answer the requisition of our practical 
friends. 

I am fully prepared to admit that a young man may 
read German instead of Greek, and French and Italian 
instead of Latin, in such a way as to derive more ben- 
efit from that course than a very large number of our 
students do from their Greek and Latin; but this 
would be an exceptional case — and I think that even 
such a student would be ultimately led to take up Latin 
and Greek at a greater expenditure of time than if he 
had begun with them. Looking at the question gener- 
ally, the difficulty which presents itself is this : That 
part of the study of Modern Languages which answers 
to the study of the Ancient, and the 'practical part of 
them — that is, the being able to speak them with flu- 
ency, are in a great measure independent of each other. 
The practical part is learned only by practice — by talk- 
ing yourself and hearing others talk around you. The 
pronunciation, which is half the battle, can only be ac- 
quired in this way. All of us must have met with men 
who could read French easily, nay, had read a fair 
amount of French literature ; yet could with difficulty 
put two sentences together correctly in conversation. 
A New Yorker generally speaks better French than a 
Londoner, because he is more in the habit of meeting 



Five Years in an English University. 491 

Frenchmen and persons who speak French. Spanish is 
more generally spoken in New York than in Boston, on 
account of our commercial intercourse with Cuba,Mexico, 
and South America, and the number of natives of those 
countries constantly to be found among us ; while Span- 
ish literature is more read and better understood in 
Boston than in New York. A Cambridge First Class 
man suddenly called on to talk Latin to a Hungarian or 
German scholar will bungle very much at first ; he will 
not converse half as fluently as a New Yorker will in 
French with a Frenchman ; yet the Cantab really knows 
more Latin than the New Yorker does French — that is 
to say he can read Latin with less danger of meeting a 
word that he does not know the meaning of, translate it 
more accurately, and write it more elegantly and gram- 
matically than the other can French. It is useless to 
multiply examples — the distinction is sufficiently evident. 

Now, if the critical study of Modern Languages 
were chiefly attended to at our Colleges, it is probable 
that the advances made by the students in the practical 
use of them as a medium of direct communication with 
foreigners, would not be so rapid as altogether to satisfy 
the advocates of this study on practical grounds. They 
would run the risk of being much disappointed, when 
the College Junior, who had been reading and writing 
French for a couple of years, was imable to converse 
familiarly with the first Frenchman he encountered. 
Their object would not be attained, while that of the 
advocates of the mental discipline afibrded by the study 
of languages would see their end working out some- 
what as before, only with inferior tools. 

This is one danger. The opposite one, though less 
imminent, is more formidable — that the Modei'n Lan- 
guages might be studied only for practical use in con- 



492 Five Years in an JSnglish University. 

versation and the commonest forms of writing: Such 
an education would do well for a man of 2:)leasnre or a 
commercial traveller; I would not recommend it to any- 
one else. If speaking foreign languages were any test 
of intellectual progress, the Russians ought to be ahead 
of all the rest of the world, for there are no such prac- 
tical linguists as the better class of Russians. They 
talk French like Parisians, English like Englishmen, 
German like Germans, Italian like Italians. What does 
it profit them ? Simply that their bodily comforts and 
personal consequence are somewhat promoted by it 
when they travel. What have they done for literature, 
for freedom, for true cultivation of any sort ? What do 
they take home from their travels ? A knowledge of 
French wines and silks, perhaps of Italian music : of the 
thoughts that shake emj)ires and create intellectual and 
political revolutions, they appropriate none. 

Finally, are we to substitute for Greek and Latin not 
one only, but all or several of the studies enumerated ? 
This is the dream and wish of many reformers, the am- 
bition perhaps of not a few students. Doubtless we are 
a very clever peojDle, but not sufficiently so to make 
universal geniuses of all our Collegians. For a man to 
" make omniscience his forte," as Sydney Smith phrased 
it, he must have extraordinary talents of many different 
kinds, and in addition, an uncommonly good constitution 
to be able to stand the hard work which the acquisition 
of so much knowledge requires even of the most tal- 
ented men. Of such fa\»ored mortals, there are perhaps 
a dozen in an age. Nay more, we shall find that these 
very men began their multifarious learning with learn- 
ing the Classics. Take some of the names that naturally 
occur to us : Macaulay — he was a crack Classic Univer- 
sity Scholar, and Fellow of Trinity ; Humboldt — he is a 



Five Years in an English TJniversity. 493 

scholar as well as a savant ; Brougham — his scholarship 
may not be of the utmost accuracy, but no one would 
say that he had not received a fair Classical education, 
and did not know a considerable quantity of Greek and 
Latin. I do not know if the attempt was ever made to 
turn out a man or a set of men who should know omne 
scibile except the Classical languages and literature ; till 
the experiment has been tried, and tried successfully, we 
have good reason to believe that it would be trying to 
put up an immense building without any foundation. 

Early in this chapter it was remarked that our oppo- 
nents might justly be called upon to begin the attack, as 
Classical studies were in possession. But it would be 
doing those studies injustice to rest their claim on this 
negative and incidental ground. I therefore now pro- 
ceed to the positive part of the argument, and assert 
roundly that the study of Latin and Greek, carried out 
further and more thoroughly than it now is in any of our 
Colleges, would be peculiarly calculated to benefit our 
College-going youth, and through them our whole 
country. 

One of the greatest difficulties in the way of a man's 
daily and progressive development as a man is the con- 
stant pressure of his professional or business avocations. 
The merchant has to look after his cargoes and keep his 
bank-book straight, the broker to watch the stock mar- 
ket, the clergyman to write his sermons and mind his 
parochial affairs, the lawyer to bandy words in court, 
the editor to abuse the other side in politics — every 
man has a tendency to become absorbed in his particular 
pursuit, and the cleverer and more ambitious the man, 
the stronger this tendency usually is. He becomes ham- 
pered by the formulas of his profession. He " talks 
shop " in and out of season. He associates with those 



494 Five Years in an English University. 

similarly occupied, and they all help to render one 
another more one-sided. And this is particularly the 
case with us, because an American, more quick-witted 
and energetic and ambitious than any other man, throws 
himself into whatever he undertakes more earnestly and 
completely. Some there are, however, who having 
either acquired or inherited as much wealth as is suffi- 
cient for their wants, are tied down to no exclusive pur- 
suit. These ought to be more liberal and unprejudiced, 
more literary and generally accomplished, larger and 
loftier in their views, more men in short than any other 
class : frequently, alas ! they are the very reverse. Ab- 
sence of daily toil gives them no positive bond of sym- 
pathy. They have not been educated to enjoy or profit 
by their leisure ; their only centre of union is a well- 
spread banquet ; they can only find their level in friv- 
olous pursuits and amusements of doubtful value, even 
as relaxations. 

Now what we want to remedy this evil is something 
which shall cultivate those intellectual faculties and 
tendencies, and supply those intellectual wants that are 
common to all intelligent and reasoning men as men ; 
that are common to men of all professions ; something 
that shall give men of all professions a common ground 
to meet on in leisure moments; that shall rival and 
counteract the enticements of the pleasures of sense or 
the repose of idleness ; something that shall give men 
of leisure a mode of spending their time profitably to 
themselves, and at least not injuriously to others. 

In some countries this desideratum is supplied by 
the love of art. All the educated classes are amateurs 
of music, painting, and sculpture ; all members of the 
educated classes, however different their professions, 
have this point of contact. The merits and influence of 



Five Years m an English Univer'sity. 495 

such a taste it would be irrelevant to discuss here, since 
an enthusiasm for art is not and cannot be made a trait 
of any people sprung mainly from an Anglo-Saxon 
stock. Our common subject must be something more 
dependent on the purely intellectual and logical faculties. 
Society makes various efforts to suj^ply itself with such 
a general topic. Politics, discussed with all our national 
fury of exaggeration, dividing the community into two 
parties ready to spring at each other's throats, con- 
tribute very little to the pleasures of social intercourse 
or the improvement of our higlier mental faculties ; 
pecuniary subjects do indeed excite an interest common 
to all men, but the very reverse of an ennobling or lib- 
eralizing one. 

Now this common bond which we want, a good 
classical education supplies. The learned languages 
were the depositories of a past world's intellectual 
wealth during the long night of the Middle Ages. 
They obtained a universal foothold as instruments of a 
liberal and literary education, when the modern lan- 
guages of Europe not only contained no literature of 
their own, but were in their embryo state, unformed and 
imsettled. By and by those modern languages be- 
came, like their respective countries, organized and de- 
fined in their limits, and polished by cultivation. They 
became fit vehicles for a native literature, an 1 such lite- 
rature sprang up in them. But, flowing directly from 
classical literature, it continued in every case to retain 
some tincture from the original source ; with the dis- 
tinct impress of nationality are always to be found 
blended some features referable to the common stock. 
From Greece through Rome was Europe civilized : from 
Europe America. There is a direct intellectual uc- 
cession (far clearer to trace than the vaunted AjDostolic 



496 Five Years in an English University. 

one) from the Athenians to ourselves ; the scholars of 
the world have been its trustees. The classics are the 
golden chains that bind together the past and the pres- 
ent, the east and the west of literature. Classical edu- 
cation gives men a common taste and sympathy for lit- 
erature. It not only makes them like to read, but 
teaches them how to read; it enables them to under- 
stand books, and understand one another when they 
talk about books.* And it is because the acquisition of 
such an education does not require any preeminent tal- 
ent, because any one — ego vel Cluviemcs — who is not 
positively heloio the average of intelligence can acquire 
it with the necessary time and trouble — it is precisely 
on this account that it is valuable to the majority of men 
in the better ranks of life, to ordinary doctors, ordinary 
lawyers, ordinary merchants. But especially valuable 
is it to men of no profession, as supplying them with 
some gentlemanly occupation and amusement, besides 
eating and drinking, dressing, and dancing. Even its 
moral benefits to such men in giving them something to 
do, and a taste for doing something, and thus guarding 
them from some of the temptations to which idleness is 
peculiarly liable, are not to be despised. 

* "While writing the above I stumbled upon the assertion (in 
an English work) that "A knowledge of "Walter Scott and Shak- 
speare would better qualijfy a man for the freemasonry of the lite- 
rary world than a knowledge of Homer." This is the old fallacy 
of premise, to which I am not sorry to take an opportunity of 
alluding once more. It implies that the man who has read Homer 
is not likely to have read Shakspeare and Scott, whereas he is the 
very man most likely to read them to the best advantage and en- 
joy them the most heartily ; to luxuriate in Scott's romance with- 
out taking it for history, to study Shakspeare and his commen- 
tators at home without needing the adventitious excitement of a 
male lecturer or a lady public-reader. 



Five Years in an English University. 497 

Any consideration for or allusion to the welfare of 
this class may be summarily condemned in certain quai'- 
ters as anti-republican and "aristocratic" — it being a 
fashion of your reformers and philanthropists to talk of 
such people as if they were a set of drones or vipers, to 
be extenninated without mercy or at least packed out 
of the country. But it is certain that this class is in- 
creasing in numbers as our nation grows older, and that, 
moreover, being variable from one generation to an- 
other, as families and individuals grow rich or poor, its 
education must in several generations influence that of 
a very large number of families, and have a very appre- 
ciable influence on that of the community. Nor are the 
rich of one generation to be altogether disregarded. 
Utterly insignificant as his political influence may be, 
the capitalist or the capitalist's son cannot fail to have 
social influence. The very Jews of the middle ages, 
destitute of all political rights and in constant peril of 
life or liberty, were not without power to control the 
current of events. 

But, to make our position as broad and as practical 
as may be (for much of the above may seem the exag- 
geration of professional enthusiasm to those who have 
not experienced the eftects of thorough classical train- 
ing on a man's ideas, or the diflferent impression made 
by the society of those who have and those who have 
not received this training), I noAV proceed distinctly to 
maintain that the cultivation of a high classical standard 
at our colleges would benefit the whole country at large, 
by correcting two cf cur prominent national errors. 

It has been remarked and shown in a former chapter 
that the principal and most valuable results of thorough 
classical study are accuracy and taste. Now inaccuracy 
and had taste are the most ordinary blemishes of all our 



498 Five Years in an English University. 

intellectual performances. Quicker of apprehension 
and expression than any other peoj)le, our countrymen 
commit themselves oftener in errors of detail than any 
other people. Kapid and superficial, with an indis- 
tinct knowledge of many things, but not really at 
home in any one thing except the empirical part 
of his particular calling; always ready to impart in- 
formation or to raise a controversy, and more apt 
to look at the immediate impression than at the ul- 
timate effect to be produced ; the American is continu- 
ally making little slips, his very speed tripping hirn up. 
He is too impatient to investigate minutiae. To verify 
a reference or a quotation is the last thing that occurs 
to him. He becomes habituated to make assertions, 
and calling in illustrations merely to point a sentence or 
fill u]i a phrase, without taking care to satisfy himself 
of its correctness; for he trusts to three chances, first 
that he may be right, secondly that if he is wrong 
he may not be found out, thirdly that if the error is 
detected he may be able to make a plausible defence 
of or apology for it. Look at our newspapers, for in- 
stance, the large cities no less than the small country 
sheets ; what a mass of blunders every fresh batch of 
them lets loose upon society. Were I an editor I would 
have for a standing head of a column, " Errors of our 
contemporaries," and such a column would be sure to 
be always well filled, and not unamusing or uninstruc- 
tive. One can scarcely pass an hour any morning in a 
reading-room without making a choice collection of con- 
tributions from all parts of the Union towards the 
perversion of knowledge ; blunders in Ancient History 
and Literature, e. g. that Socrates was put to death by 
the thirty tyrants, or that Sophocles wrote the Medea ; 
blunders in modern, even in contemporary history, such 



Five Years 17% an English University. 499 

as that the English excited the revolution in St. Do- 
mingo, 01' that Lord John Russell caused the famine in 
Ireland ; blunders in regard to foreign authors, such as 
that John Stuart Mill is a Tory writer, or that Albert 
Smith was the author of the Rejected Addresses ; blun- 
ders about artists, such as that Parodi had the part of 
Caliban m Hal6vy's Temjiesta ', mis-quotations not only 
from foreign" languages but from the standard English 
authors, to such an extent that a very precise man may 
be led into them by sheer force of bad example.* Per- 
haps these inaccuracies have their most ludicrous effect 
when coming in the form of information to others, as 
when some enterprising man with a commendable zeal 
for knowledge, but a very mistaken idea as to the proper 
source of enlightenment, writes to ask '' Who was the 
author of the JProut Papers ? " and is told in reply that 
" the Prout Papers " were written by an English clergy- 
man named Ingoldshy.\ 

* I once made a wrong quotation from Shakspeare, entirely 
through having seen the passage pertinaciously misquoted for years 
in our journals. It served me right for taking such authority 
■without verification. 

f Should any of the fraternity feel wroth with me for speaking 
so candidly of their attainments, I beg leave to suggest the possi- 
bility of their deriving some benefit from the above paragraph. It 
may at least open their eyes to one cause of the contemptuous 
way in which foreign writers sometimes speak of them, and which 
they are so unable to understand as actually in some instances to 
believe it the disguise of jealousy. 

I might have mentioned among the inaccuracies of our press 
its habit of calling the authors of leading articles in the London 
papers " Penny-a-liners," and representing them as mere hack 
scribblers sprung from a doubtful class of society. Among these 
" penny-a-liners" are, to my own 'personal knowledge, Fellows and 
Professors of colleges, eminent clergymen, rising barristers, noble- 



500 Five Years in an English University. 

These mistakes cannot properly be said to proceed 
from ignorance. They arise rather from want of re- 
flection, and an inaccurate way of dealing with all sub- 
jects of knowledge, encouraged by the conceit of super- 
ficial acquirements. To consult a friend, to step into 
the nearest bookseller's, to investigate the -contents of 
his own library even, are things either beneath the edi- 
tor's dignity, or a useless waste of time. If a publisher 
sends him a work of fiction, he accepts whatever au- 
thor's name the publisher may put upon the cover, without 
stopping to think if it may not be a mere trick of the 
trade to make the book sell (though it is notorious that 
full ten per cent, of the novels republished here are 
credited to the wrong authors). If he wants some awful 
fact to point an anti-English article, he does not cite it 
by chapter and verse from authentic records, but takes 
it second or third hand from some Irish or equally 
imaginative authority. 

Similar inaccuracy, though not always so gross, may 
be traced in other classes of writing and writers; in 
grave Quarterlies, where haste or want of time cannot 
be pleaded in excuse ; in the works of really able 
professors ; in the speculations of men fond of science 
but who have not taken the pains to ground them- 
selves in its first principles. Nor is this looseness 
confined to subjects of the intellect ; there is a great 
deal of moral inaccuracy among us, not tending to in- 
crease our virtue at home or respectability abroad. 
Most striking individual instances might be given of 
this but for the fear of introducing personal or partisan 

men's sons, and even ladies of good family. A comparison between, 
the stations in society of the persons who write for the English 
daily press and those who write for ours would not turn out to 
the disadvantage of the former. 



Five Years in an JEnglish University. 501 

reflections. Some general instances may be hinted at. 
To charge a member of the government with peculation, 
and be unable to prove the charge, would, in England, 
cause the accuser to be hooted at by all the respectable 
men of his own party ; here it is passed by as only an 
ordinary incident of political warfare — a bold specula- 
tion which imfortunately did not succeed. To misquote 
a literary opponent is disgraceful to a European contro- 
versialist ; it was one of the things that contributed to 
the downfall of the Puseyite influence in England, being 
considered and denounced as conduct unworthy of 
scholars and gentlemen; here it is apologized for as a 
slip of the pen or the printer, and the apology is by many 
deemed sufiicient. Nay, I am not sure but the great in- 
dulgence aflbrded to commercial failures, an indulgence 
often overstepping the bounds of charity, may properly 
come under this head. The fundamental error is the 
same, in the three cases; too much leniency shown to 
gross carelessness. 

An education which teaches men to read, think, and 
learn slowly, carefully, and deliberately, and which prac- 
tically convinces them at every step of their fallibiUty 
and proneness to be mistaken, is the best calculated to 
correct this national inaccuracy, mental and moral. 

The other great national defect of our national popu- 
lar literature and oratory, and intellectual public displays 
generally, is bad taste, manifesting itself in a more than 
Hibernian tawdriness of style, a violence and exaggera- 
tion of language, a forced accumulation of ornament, not 
growing naturally out of the subject, but stuck violently 
on for the sake of having it there ; and also in a long- 
winded difiiiseness and inane repetition of common- 
places. Here I can fancy some one starting up and say- 
ing — the tu quoque is so favorite a form of argument 



502 Five Years in an English Vninersity. 

with a certain class, and, without doubt, has a great ad 
captandum effect — " The author has the driest and most 
unadorned style himself; how can he appreciate an ele- 
gant and florid one ? " IsTow there are few persons who 
enjoy a good ornate style more than myself; I read Ma- 
caulay over and over, and have almost some of his 
essays by heart ; the gorgeous word-painting of Ruskin 
has an exceeding charm for me ; but compared with the 
sentences of such men, richly colored by the allusions 
of learning, and sedulously polished by critical accuracy, 
the bulk of what our periodical censors agree to call 
" fine writing " seems to me like stage tinsel and paste 
to real jewelry, or a bouquet of artificial flowers to 
a posy of natural ones, imitating the original to a cur- 
sory inspection, bvit a worthless sham when you come to 
look into it, Should any one still join issue on the 
fact and maintain that our popular style is not vicious, 
it would, I confess, not be very easy to convince him ; 
a question of taste cannot be made matter of demon- 
stration. If I were to cite forty instances of false 
metaphor, turgidity, bombast, and bathos, he might still 
consider those very examples specimens of beautiful 
writing. But one thing can hardly be denied by any- 
body — that our writers and speakers are terribly de- 
ficient in the faculty of selection ; that (with some emi- 
nent exceptions) they never know when they have said 
enough ; that a great majority of our sermons, lectures, 
forensic arguments, anniversary addresses, etc., and our 
public documents and Congressional speeches, almost 
without exception, are a great deal longer than they 
ought to be. 

The remark has been made to me more than once in 
conversation, that the displays of vulgarity, prolixity, 
bombast, etc., which deform our popular literature, are 



Five Years in an English University. 503 

chiefly to be set down to the discredit of uneducated 
southern and western men, who could not be in the 
most indirect Avay affected by any condition of or change 
in our collegiate system. To this it may be replied, 
first, that the monopoly of bad taste is not confined to 
the south and west. There is a great deal of the article 
in New England. True, there is also much pure and 
refined taste. There are New Englanders whose works 
have become acknowledged classics of the English 
language, acknowledged not only by England but by 
Euroi^e. There are New Englanders whose speeches 
will endure as models of oratory while the language en- 
dures. But there are also a great many New England- 
ers who are continually talking and writing all over the 
country anything but the choicest English. Next, sup- 
posing the position admitted to its fullest extent, there 
are two ways of treating such wild men of the woods, 
which have very different effects, and are directly de- 
pendent on the collegiate system adopted. If you take 
the ability to make a speech as a sign of education, you 
put yourself and the uneducated man on something like 
a footing ; for he, knowing only how to read and write 
perhaps, but having plenty of impudence and self-pos- 
session, and acquiring a stock of party commonplaces 
from the newspapers or some equally accessible source, 
can make as fluent and long a speech as you — not as 
good, no doubt, but he will think it as good, and feel 
himself your equal. Make classical knoioledge a stand- 
ard of the edticated man, and you put such a person 07i 
his level at once. There is a gulf between you and him 
that no amount of noisy haranguing can get over. 

The critical habits induced by classical study, teach- 
ing condensation of thought by rejection of superflui- 
ties, purity of style and clearness rather than magnilo- 



504 Five years in an English University. 

quence of expression, ave the best protection against 
the inroads of bad taste. Abolish the study of Greek 
and Latin entirely, and we shoiild be delivered over to 
the Vandals of literature, the heroes of the stump and 
the penny paper. 

Lecturers and writers on the subject of education 
are in the habit of crying out continually for more of it. 
I, on the contrary, would like to call attention to the 
desirableness of having a higher order of it — an educa- 
tion for men of refinement. I think our country has 
reached that point in national progress when she can af- 
ford to attend to refinement. Our common school edu- 
cation is probably much better and more generally dif- 
fused than that of any other country ; our liberal educa- 
tion is certainly behind that of several countries. Ought 
we not to take most pains for the improvement of that in 
which we are most deficient f I put this as a practical 
question for every man to ask himself who has money to 
give or leave, or influence to exert or time to spend in 
the cause of education. 

*' You want an education for rich men," interposes 
some patent friend of the people, who disguises his envy 
of all those that are better ofli" in this world's goods than 
himself, by a professed sympathy for those who are 
worse ofi". Well, I do want an education for rich men. 
Do they not stand in special need of it ? such an education, 
too, as will give them other sources of pleasure besides the 
material ones derived from wealth ? But perhaps the 
objector means that I want an education in the advantages 
of which none but rich men can participate — an assertion 
disproved at once by the fact that numbers of poor men 
in England, France, Germany, and other European 
countries, are enjoying such an education. " Oh, but you 
want an education for gentleinenP Exactly — I do ; and 



Five Years in an English University. 505 

the gentlemen whom I want to train np should require 

just wealth enough to enable them to wear clean shirts, 

and be just " aristocrats " enough to prefer the company 

of persons with clean shirts and clean habits to that of 

persons with dirty ones, 
oo 



506 Five Years in an English Tlniversity. 



WHAT CAiT WE AND OUGHT WE TO DO FOE OUR 
COLLEGES ? 

If Tpoiav TTELpiifievoi ^v&ov ^Axaioi. 

Theoceitus, Idyll. XV., v. 31. 

THE conclusion of our investigations is that the Eng- 
lish system of liberal education possesses some 
decided advantages over ours ; a conclusion from assent- 
ing to which the reader need not be prevented by any 
personal dislike he may feel towards England or Eng- 
lishmen. Let him profit by the motto of this book, and 
be wise enough to take a lesson from those whom he 
does not acknowledge as friends. Still, before we can 
make any j)ractical use of our result an important in- 
quiry remains. It may be that the peculiar benefits of 
such an education as an English University affords are 
dependent on certain political and social conditions pe- 
culiar to England, or upon certain antecedents having no 
counterpart among us. If so, it would be a clear waste 
of time to suggest any improvements from that quarter. 
We may be curious about the system or admire it at a 
distance, but can never rationally hope to imitate it. To 
seek an impossible combination of advantages is one of 
the most frequent errors of reformers, and one of the 
most prolific sources of delusion. Indeed were I asked 
in what practical wisdom consists, I should not know 
how to answer better than by defining it as the faculty 
of discerning things compatible and incompatible — that 
is, I should enlarge Whately's definition, " a ready per- 



Five Years in an English University. 507 

ception of analogies," by the addition, and a ready dis- 
critni?iation of differences. 

If therefore the peculiar advantages of an English 
University education are such as to require for their de- 
velopment (1) the influence of an hereditary aristocracy, 
(2) an established church, (3) public schools like the 
English for the preparatory training of the students, (4) 
greater wealth on the part of the students than the ma- 
jority of our undergraduates possess, (5) greater wealth 
on the part of the institxitions themselves — if they in- 
volve any one, and a fortiori if they involve all these 
conditions, then we may copy them in form, but can never 
hope to reproduce their reality. 

Are these conditions essential ? 

It seems to me pretty evident that the first is not. 
The whole number of noblemen and "hat Fellow-Com- 
moners " at Cambridge does not exceed thii'ty, and not 
one sixth of those reading-men. Their extinction or 
absence would not diminish both triposes by the average 
of three a year, nor would it alter anything in the Uni- 
versity except that there would be a few showy gowns 
less on holidays. 

Equally plain does it seem that the second condition 
is in no way essential. The ethics and divinity entering 
into the college Under-graduate studies or the Univer- 
sity course, are not necessarily favorable to the peculiar 
views of any denomination. A Unitarian might read most 
of it. I was going to say a Romanist could; but the In- 
dex Expurgatorius may have extended farther than we 
are aware of Paley and Butler, the Acts of the Apos- 
tles and the Old Testament History, are not remarkably 
sectarian. The only point where the Established Church 
acts immediately on the ordinary life and system of the 
student is attendance at chapel. Now almost every one 



508 Five years in an English University. 

of our colleges is under the control of some particular 
denomination, and all our students are compelled to at- 
tend daily prayers, and much more rigorously too than 
the Cambridge men ; so that in this respect the collegi- 
ate institutions of the two countries are already on a 
similar footing. 

The existence of the public schools seems more im- 
mediately connected with that of the Universities. I 
know the opinion to be common among our scholars 
(having often seen it expressed in jDrint as well as heard 
it) that whatever benefits result from the English system 
of education are owing to the schools and not to the 
universities. Some things which have been stated in 
this book may go a little way towards removing this 
impression. That the onathematical training at Cam- 
bridge does not depend on the public schools is clear 
enough. Few Eton, or Westminster, or Harrow, or 
Shrewsbury men are high wranglers. The public school 
men might be taken out of the mathematical tripos al- 
together without leaving a very serious gap in it. With 
regard to classics the case is indeed difierent. Much of 
the highest technical scholarship, particularly superiority 
in composition, and more particularly in verse compo- 
sition, is due to the student from the public schools. 
Take them away and you would take away four out of 
the first five men in every Classical Tripos. Still you 
would have a high standard left ; for a man to be in the 
first class at all must be a pretty good scholar, and 
know quite classics enough to bother many of our Pro- 
fessors. And a non-public-school man may make very 
considerable progress in classics at the University, and 
derive great benefit from the instruction there. Two 
instances occurred in my time of the Second Chancel- 
lor's Medallist not having been at any public school, and 



Five Years in an English University. 509 

the senior Medallist in 1840 came fi-om King's College, 
London. 

The expense of a University education in England 
is certainly startling at first sight. That a student sj^end- 
ing $750 a year should be called decidedly economical, 
and one spending $1,500 not extravagant, gives a great 
shock to the accustomed ideas of an American, German, 
or Frenchman. But we must remember that England 
is one of the very dearest countries in the world. All 
the necessaries of life (except some kinds of clothing) 
cost about twice as much, not merely at Cambridge but 
in English country towns, as they do at New Haven ; 
and the comparison with a University town of Conti- 
nental Europe would probably show a greater difference. 
Making the proper deductions on this account, the neces- 
sary expenses of a Cantab Avill, toith the exception of 
•private tuition, be brought very nearly on a par with 
those of a Yalensian. And the items which oblige me 
to add the qualifications very nearly are such as I would 
gladly see added to the American student's account. If, 
for instance, there were better arrangements for clean- 
ing the men's rooms (every Graduate of Yale College 
will understand what I allude to), the civilization accru- 
ing therefrom would be cheaply purchased by the addi- 
tion of a few dollars to each term-bill.* 

The expenses for private tuition, which Avill not be 
exaggerated if set down at $175 per annum for three 
years and a half, or above $600 for the whole course, 
form a large item, one which many of our students 

* One of the grievances of the Trinity Under-graduates used 
to be that they had not baths and a water-closet in every staircase 
(every entry, as our students call it), and their complaints actually 
found their way into the Quarterly Review. This may seem ex- 
travagant, but it surely is a failing that leans to virtue's side. 



510 Five Years in an English University. 

■would not be able or willing to pay , so that supposing 
the requisite sort of persons ready to make private 
tutors, it is very imj^robable that the system could be es- 
tablished amongst us so as to become at all general, for 
a long while at least. Here, then, we come directly to 
the question, whether the peculiar advantages which we 
have attributed to the Cambridge system of education 
are inseparable from private tuition ? In treating of the 
private tutors it has been stated that some distinguished 
members of the University, including the Master of 
Trinity himself, wished to put them down entirely, or 
confine them within such limits as would be equivalent 
to their extinction; but that, in the opinion of the ma- 
jority (wherein I heartily coincide from personal experi- 
ence), such a step would be very injurious. I certainly 
do think that the private tutors are an important feature 
of the University ; that they enable a badly-prepared 
but industrious student to make up his deficiencies in a 
way that no other mode can, and at the same time pre- 
vent the best men from being kept back by the others, 
thus saving time to all classes of students. But I would 
not affirm or admit that they are essential to the Uni- 
versity, or that no improvements from it could be trans- 
planted into any other institution unless they were in- 
cluded in the improvements; nor do I think any one 
would go so far as to say this. They contribute to the 
accurate and systematic training of the men, but are not 
indispensable to it. 

The rich endowments of the colleges enable them to 
oflTer the highest rewards for learning — solid rewards as 
well as distinctions. Putting out of the question those 
who come up with school " exhibitions," and also the 
Sizars, who receive their commons for nothing, and their 
instruction, public and pi'ivate, at half price, a tolerably 



Five Years in an English University. 511 

forward student, such a one as is first in a small college 
and turns out a respectable Avrangler or a good double 
second, will make, by his college scholarship, two fifths 
or three fifths of his expenses during two thirds of the 
time he passes at the University. A Trinity Scholar 
wishing to continue in residence for a year or two as a 
Bachelor, either with the intention of pursuing his theo- 
logical studies or of carrying out any other branch, has 
about a third of his necessary expenditure supplied from 
a similar source. The student of superior abilities and 
industry who gains a Fellowship, is provided for during 
the remainder of his bachelor existence, having an in- 
come of about a thousand dollars to depend upon. 

Here it must be confessed is our gi-eat difficulty. 
Our colleges want wealth, in the form of specific endow- 
ments, foundations to support as well as encourage 
learning. Very promising young men are often com- 
pelled to quit college in the middle of their course, or 
to be temporarily absent teaching school or raising 
money in some similar Avay, to the great detriment of 
their immediate studies. As for resident Graduates 
wishing to pursue some literary or philosophical faculty 
beyond the college course, there is scarcely any provision 
or opening for them. It is the want of funds, and those 
funds specifically appi'opriated to these purposes, that 
prevents, more than anything else, our Colleges and 
Universities from having such teachers (both in number 
and quality), giving such systematic instruction, and 
diflTusing about themselves such a classical atmosphere 
as will in a considerable measure correct the eftects of 
bad previous instruction. 

This, then, is the point to which all persons taking 
an interest in the advancement of our Colleges and Uni- 
versities should turn their attention. We want endow- 



512 Five Years in an English University. 

ments. For the furtherance of this object lyiiblic as- 
sistance is not to be thought of The recent act of our 
own State Legislature in endorsing Noah Webster's 
barbarous innovations on English orthography is a fair 
S2Deciinen of the capability of such gentry to decide on 
matters of scholarship and high learning. We must 
look to private liberality. Many of the College Schol- 
arships and Fellowships, and the majority of the prizes, 
College and University, at Cambridge, are owing to 
gifts or legacies from individuals. The generous spirit 
of our countrymen in such matters is too well known to 
require enlai'ging upon ; and I feel persuaded that were 
the subject once definitely brought before them and ex- 
plained to them, there are many men of substance who 
would give their $1,000 or $2,000 apiece, each to his re- 
spective Alma Mater, for the foundation of a Scholar- 
ship, and some who would be much more liberal. The 
first thing to aim at is, to direct their attention clearly 
to it and show how such gifts have a certain tendency 
to promote learning, and can scarcely by any possibility 
be misapplied, as vague and general bequests for educa- 
tional purposes or establishments of independent de- 
partments. 

All this, however, looks only to the future, and is 
the work of much time. Does nothing admit of being 
done at once to improve the standard of scholarship and 
of education generally in our colleges ? I think there 
is much which might be done, and shall now proceed 
to show how I would set about it, supposing myself in 
the place of a president, professor, or other influential 
member of the " Faculty " of a large college or uni- 
versity. 

[I am very happy to say that nearly all the rest of 
this chapter, as originally written, has become an ana- 



Five Years in an English University. 513 

chronism. Several of the most important changes 
recommended, such as the introduction of written ex- 
aminations, the examination of students in passages and 
authors not forming a part of the regular course, and 
even the abolition of those fearful six o'clock New Eng- 
land winter-morning chapels have been adopted by sev- 
eral of our principal colleges. Other suggestions have 
been rendered unnecessary or impossible by the progress 
of events. I shall merely say, therefore, in a general 
way that I would abolish the Junior Exhibition if it 
could be done without raising a mutiny, that I would 
continue the serious study of Greek and Latin up to the 
very end of the four years, that I M^ould put the Seniors 
through a thorough course of Logic and that I would 
make the final standing of the students more dependent 
on the examinations and less on the daily recitations 
than it still is in most of our institutions. I also hold to 
my original opinion that when the " Beneficiaries " form 
a numerous class (as at Yale) they should not be mixed 
up with the younger students, but should be made into 
a special separate department preparatory to the Theo- 
logical.] 

The suggested changes not only recognize the prin- 
ciple of emulation as a legitimate one, but encourage it to 
its full extent. This may seem to call for some remark, 
as the doctrine is frequently put forth (though the gen- 
eral practice of our institutions is against it) that all re- 
wards for excellence in college studies are based on au 
unsound principle and tend to harm, that they excite ill- 
feeling and envy, and bribe students to do that to which 
a sense of duty should be a sufficient inducement. 

Any endowment for the encouragement of classical, 
mathematical, or other learning, necessitates the idea of 
competition, otherwise you abolish the only test of what 
22* 



514 Five Years in mi English University . 

they were intended to promote. The difficulty of ob- 
taining proper teachers, already sufficiently formidable, 
would be ten times augmented by the abolition of all 
distinctions for academic proficiency, since the public 
would have no means of judging who were best qualified 
to teach. Boys will not study mathematics from a sense 
of duty — that is, not one in a hundred — it is too up-hill 
work ; nor will they indeed, from the same abstract mo- 
tive, study classics in a sound, regular way, taking the 
dry matter with the interesting as it comes. They will 
be apt to work in a dilettante way, and pick out the tit- 
bits. The example of the German universities is not in 
point. The German students have been worked hard at 
their gymjiasia, and have j^assed severe examinations on 
quitting those. They are, at the university, occupitid 
immediately upon their professional studies, for those of 
them who will not be lawyers, doctors, or clergymen, 
will be " ordinary " professors or government functiona- 
ries, immediately after taking their degrees. The fruit 
of their study is close at hand. With regard to the 
envy and ill-will supposed to be excited by competition 
for honors, they certainly are not evils inseparable from 
the system. You see nothing of them at Cambridge. 
The two Medallists, or the two Smith's Prizemen, are 
often warm personal friends, reading with the same 
tutor, and passing much of their time together. Even 
with us the extent of it is greatly exaggerated ; but so 
far as it does exist, it is justly chargeable not on the 
principle of emulation, but on that spirit of envy and 
imiDatience of superiority so general in our country, 
which is expressly generated by our democratic institu- 
tions, and must be taken as one of the evils of those in- 
stitutions along with their blessings. According to more 
general considerations, it is tolerably evident that emula- 



Five Years in an English University. 515 

tion is one of the main springs of human progress in all 
departments of life ; that individuals and nations become 
torpid and retrograde without it ; that success attend- 
ing on patient industry and talent combined is the usual 
rule in this world ; that the Divine Law itself is sanc- 
tioned by rewards and punishments ; that agOA'^ernment 
without rewards should also in common fairness be one 
without punishments — which would end in being no 
government at all — and this perhaps is what some peo- 
ple would prefer. Most of these things are truisms ; 
indeed all the arguments have been presented, or rath- 
er alluded to, as briefly as possible, because the com- 
mon sense of mankind readily agrees to them ; and the 
digression was made merely not to pass over in silence 
any question that has been started in reference to our 
subject. 

[It would not be doing justice to the progress of our 
colleges if I omitted all notice of the provision which 
some of them have made for the instruction in the 
Humanities oi graduates (a thing utterly unknown when 
the first edition of this book was printed), such as the 
course at Yale for the Doctorate of Philosophy. These 
additions, in my opinion, stamj) the character of univer- 
sity on an institution much more unequivocally than the 
establishment of special schools for the Fine Arts or 
the Positive Sciences. 

I also think that the new system of elective studies, 
by which students, who desire it are allowed to drop 
their classics after the second year, is not so great an 
innovation or injury as it appears at first sight to be. 
The average age of entrance has been raised within the 
last quarter of a century nearly two years, so that the 
Junior of to-day stands about where his father's con- 
temporaries did when they graduated. At the same 
time, I cannot consider it a change for the better.] 



APPENDIX. 



To form a correct idea of Cambridge examinations 
the reader must see some of the papers. I therefore 
republish those of the two most important ; the great 
final University examinations for Classical and Mathe- 
matical Honors, popularly known in my time as " the 
Senate-House " and '' Tripos." 

The Mathematical Examination has lately been in- 
creased by the addition of Heat, Magnetism and Elec- 
tricity (in their mathematical aspects) ; and the Class- 
ical by the addition of a paper on Greek and Roman 
Philosophy and Rhetoric, and another on Greek and 
Latin Philology. 

SENATE-HOUSE EXAMINATION. 

Wednesday, Jan. 1, 1845. 9. . .\\\. 

[N. B. The Differential Calculus is not to be employed.] 

1. If one side of a triangle be produced, the exte- 
rior angle is greater than either of the interior opposite 
angles. 

a. In equal circles equal circumferences are sub- 
tended by equal straight lines. 

3. A Turkey carpet, measviring 11 ft. 6 in. by 9 ft. 8 
in., is laid down on the floor of a room measuring 14 ft. 
by 12 ft. 6 in., determine the quantity of floor-cloth 
necessary to complete the covering of the area, and its 
price at 6s. per square yard. 

/3. State and explain the rule for the extraction of 
the square root of an algebraical expression. Determine 
the square root of 4ic^ — 4^^ -|- 5x-^ — 2a; -j- 1. 



518 Five Years in an English University. 

5. When is one quantity said to vary directly as an- 
other ? If £c varies directly as y when z is constant, and 
inversely as z when y is constant, then if y and z both 

vary, x will vary as — , 

If 3, 2, 1 be simultaneous values of cc, y, z respec- 
tively in the preceding proposition, determine the value 
of £c when y = 2 and 2 := 4. 

y. Solve the following equations : 

a; + l~" a;' 

x-\-y—x^ ) 
^y—X = y^ S 



■[/ a-\-x-\-[/ a — x = \/h. 

7. Investigate a rule for transforming a number from 
one scale of notation to another. 

In what scale will the number 95 be denoted by 
137? 

^. Prove that 

tan B -f- tan 6' 
tan(0 + 0')= i_tan0t^0' ' 

and also that 

-il -il -il -il 

tan 1- tan 1- tan 1- tan — = . 

3 5 7 8 4 

_52 j^qI _ai 
9. Assuming the formula cos A ^bc ' ^^^ 

an expression for the area of a plane triangle in terms 
of the sides. 

Simplify the expression in the case of an equilateral 
triangle. 

e. Find the equation of the straight line which meets 
the axes of x and y respectively at distances a and b 
from the origin. If the axes are rectangular, what angle 



Appendix. 519 

do the two straight lines a; + y p/ 3 = arid x — y y^ 3 
= 2 make with each other ? 

11. Investigate the polar equation of the conic sec- 
tions referred to the focus. 

If S be the focus, and P8P' any focal chord, then 

op "1" "opT ^ a constant quantity. 

C. If the distance between the vertex and focus of 
an ellipse remain constant while the major axis increases 
sine limite^ the ellipse will ultimately pass into a para- 
bola. 

What is the eccentricity of the ellipse whose equation 
is 2a;2 + Zy"" = c^ ? 

In spherical triangles the sines of the angles are pro- 
portional to the sines of the opposite sides. 

V. The area of a spherical triangle varies as the ex- 
cess of the sum of its angles over two right angles. 

15. Given the logarithms of two consecutive whole 
numbers, p, p -{- 1, investigate a series for the calcula- 
tion of log {p -f- 2). 

If the tabular logarithms of two consecutive numbers 
of considerable magnitude be given, find the Napierian 
logarithms of the same numbers. 

6. If a, b, c, &c. are the roots of the equation 
cc" -\-p 1 cc'»-i + p 1 a;"-2 -f . . . = 0, 
show that 

^2 _|_ J2 _^ c2 + &c. =pi^— 2p2. 

Hence determine the nature of the roots of the equation 

a;3 + 4a;2 + 9ic + 1 = 0. 



SENATE-HOUSE EXAMINATION. 

Wedkesdat, Ja7i. 1, 1845. 1. . .4. 

N. B. The Differential Calculus is not to be employed.] 

1. Assuming that when two forces are represented 
in magnitude and direction by two adjacent sides of a 



520 Five Years in an English University. 

parallelogram the diagonal is in the direction of the re- 
sultant, prove that it also represents it in magnitude. 

A uniform beam is hung from a fixed point by two 
unequal strings attached to its extremities : compare the 
tension of each string with the weight of the beam. 

2. Find the relation between P and TFon a smooth 
inclined plane, P acting in a given direction. In what 
direction must P act to supj)ort the greatest weight ? 

TF being supported by a string parallel to the plane, 
"which passes over a fixed pulley, and is attached to a 
weight W'l prove that when W' is moved the centre of 
gravity of T^and TP will neither rise nor fall. 

3. Find the centre of gravity of the frustum of a 
pyramid bounded by a plane parallel to the base, assum- 
ing the position of .that of an entire jjyramid. 

a. How are velocity and accelerating force measured ? 
State the second law of motion. 

A body is thrown vertically upwards with a velocity 
^g. At what times will its height be 4(7, and what will 
be its velocity at these times ? 

jS. A perfectly elastic ball impinges directly upon 
another at rest ; determine the velocities after impact. 

If the original direction of the striking ball is in- 
clined at an angle of 45° to the line joining the centres, 
what will be the angle between the directions of its mo- 
tion before and after impact ? 

y. Two unequal weights connected by a string haiig 
over a fixed pulley. Find the accelerating force, neg- 
lecting the inertia of. the pulley. 

6. Enunciate and prove Newton's tenth Lemma. 
Adapt the figure to the case in which the force is con- 
stant ; and deduce the formula s =■ ^ft ^ . 

e. When bodies describe different circles with uni- 
form velocities, the forces tend to the centres of the 
circles, and are as the squares of the velocities divided 
by the radii of the circles. 

If the superior planets always appeared stationary in 
geocentric opposition, what would be the law of force, 



Appendix. 521 

supposing the orbits to be circles in the plane of the 
ecliptic ? 

C. A body is retained in a conic section by a force 
directed to the focus; show that the velocity at the 
greatest or least distance is to the velocity in a circle at 
that distance, as the square root of the latus rectum is 
to the square root of twice the greatest or least distance, 

10. Find the conditions of equilibrium of a solid 
floating in a fluid.. 

11. Show how to compare the specific gravities ot 
two liquids by weighing the same solid in each. 

12. Explain the action of the siphon. 

Water is flowing out of a vessel through a siphon ; 
what would take place if the pressure of the atmos- 
phere were removed and afterwards restored, (1) when 
the lower end of the siphon is immersed in water, (2) 
when it is not ? 

Tf. Define the principal focus of a spherical reflector. 
In direct reflection at a spherical surface, the rectangle 
contained by the distances of the conjugate foci from 
the principal focus is invariable. 

6. Find the deviation of the axis of a pencil refracted 
through a prism in a plane perpendicular to the edge. 

Can objects be seen through a prism, whose refrac- 
tive index for mean rays is 1.5, and refracting angle a 
right angle ? 

I. Prove the proposition in Optics on Avhich the con- 
struction of Hadley's sextant depends. How do you 
find the index error? 

16. When the Sun has a given north declination, 
show at what parts of the Earth he is visible (1) during 
24 hours, (2) during 12 hours. 

17. Find the time at a given place from observing the 
altitude of a known star. 

18. Explain the cause of aberration, and find the 
amount and direction of the change it produces in the 
apparent place of a star. 

Why is the apparent place of the Moon not sensibly 
affected by aberration ? 



522 Five Years in an English University. 

SENATE-HOUSE EXAMINATION. 

Thuksday, Jan. 2, 1845. 9. . .11^. 

1. Deteemin"B the conditions of equilibrium of a 
rigid body acted on by any system of forces, one point 
in the body being fixed. If the forces are not in equi- 
librium, find the plane in which a couple must be applied 
in order to produce equilibrium. 

a. The area of the surface generated by a plane curve 
which turns about an axis in its own plane is equal to 
the product of the length of the curve into the length 
of the path of its centre of gravity, provided the gener- 
ating curve lies wholly on one side of the axis. Why is 
this last condition necessary ? 

yS. Find the equation to the path of a projectile in 
vacuo. Detei'mine the angle of elevation at which a 
body must be projected in order that the focus of its 
path may lie in the horizontal plane passing through the 
point of projection. 

4. Prove that in central orbits the velocity varies in- 
versely as the perpendicular on the tangent. And hence 
show that the general equation of central orbits is 






yp" pi 

where P is the force at distance r, andri, />i are any two 
co-ordinate values of r and p. 

y. A cylindrical vessel, the top and bottom of which 
are formed by planes perpendicular to its axis, contains 
elastic fluid, the weight of which may be neglected. If 
the vessel revolve uniformly about its axis, find the pres- 
sure at any point of the fluid mass. 

6. The motion of rotation of a rigid system acted on 
by any forces, about its centre of gravity, is the same as 
if the centre of gravity were fixed, and the same forces 
acted. 

A heavy beam moves about a horizontal axis passing 
through one extremity; apply the preceding principle 



Appendix, 523 

to determinej for any position of the beam, the pressure 
on the axis in the direction perpendicular to the beam. 

7. Show that the rays of a small pencil of light after 
oblique reflection at a spherical surface converge to, or 
diverge from, two focal lines. 

Why is the image of a point formed by a prism in 
the position of minimum deviation more distinct than 
when the prism is in any other position ? 

6. A pencil of white light is incident directly on a 
thin convex lens of small aperture. Determine the po- 
sition and radius of the least circle of chromatic aber- 
ration. 

e. Find an appropriate expression for the tangential 
disturbing force of the Sun and Moon, and determine 
the amount of the Variation, so far as it depends on this 
disturbing force. 

C. Determine approximately the ratio of the axes of 
the Moon's oval orbit. What would have been the value 
of this ratio if the Moon's motion in her orbit had been 
from east to west ? 

Tf. State the ordinary methods for determining the 
latitude of the place of observation. In what manner 
may a transit instrument, whose axis is placed north and 
south, be used for this purpose ? Prove that an error 
of level in the transit instrument will produce an equal 
error in the latitude thus determined. 

12. If the polar axis of an equatoreal be slightly dis- 
placed, determine the corrections to be made in the 
readings oft". 

13. Determine the method of observing with the 
mural circle. How can incorrect graduation be detected 
in this instrument ? 

14. Investigate a formula for determining by means 
of a barometer, the altitude of a balloon. 



524 Five Years in an English University. 

PROBLEMS. 
Sekate-House. Thursday, e7a?i. 2, 1845. 1. . .4. 

1. The squares of the sides of a quadrilateral figure 
are greater than the squares of its diagonals by four 
times the square of the line joining the middle points 
of the diagonals. 

2. The coefficient of x^ in the expansion of (1+cc) 
(l-j-ca?) (I+c^jb) (l+c^cc). . ., the number of factors be- 
ing unlimited, and c less than unity, is equal to 

Cir(r-l) 

(1 _ c) (1 — c") (1 — c^)...(l — C- )• 

3. Find in a form adapted to logarithmic comj^uta- 
tion the distance of two points CD in the same plane 
with a given base AB^ the angles subtended by AB^ 
AD at (7, and by ^^, BG at X> being given. 

4. Straight lines drawn through the angular points 
of a triangle divide the sides in the ratios a to c?, h to e, 
and c to f. Show that the ratio of the area included by 
these lines to the area of the triangle is equal to 

{cibc — defy 
{ab -\- ae-\- de) {ac -\- cd -\- df) {be + bf -f- ef) 

5. Four points A, B, C and Z> on the surface of a 
sphere are joined by arcs of great circles, and JE^ F are 
the middle points of the arcs A C, BD ; show that 

cos AB + cos -SC + cos CD + cos J.Z>=4 cos AE 
cos BF cos FE, 

and deduce the property of a plane quadrilateral stated 
in Prob. 1. 

6. Straight lines drawn at right angles to the tan- 
gents of a parabola at the points where they meet a 
given straight line perpendicular to the axis, are in gen- 
eral tangents of a confocal parabola. 

7. A ball thrown from any point in one of the walls 
of a rectangular room after striking the three others re- 
turns to the point of projection before it falls to the 



Appendix. 525 

grouncl. Show that the space due to the velocity of 
projection is greater than the diagonal of the floor. 

8. Two weights are successively fixed on the south- 
ern arm of a dipping needle; having given the moments 
of the weights and the inclination of the needle to the 
horizon in the positions of equilibrium, find the true dip. 

9. A is the fixed reflector of a sextant, i5 the move- 
able one; produce BA^ the course of a ray between the 
reflections, to C, making AC= AB; and let the re- 
flector A be fixed at C in such a position that the ray 
coming from _S may be reflected to the same point in 
the opposite limb as before. If the instrument be now 
employed in the usual manner, what angle must be added 
to the reading ofl"? 

10. A cone, the vertex of which is fixed at the bot- 
tom of a vessel containing fluid, is in equilibrium with 
its slant side vertical and the lowest point of its base 
just touching the surface of the fluid. Compare the 
density of the cone with that of the fluid. 

11. A triangle is inscribed in a conic section, prove 
that the points in which the sides of the triangle pro- 
duced meet the tangents at the opposite angles are in 
the same straight line. 

12. Show that the rectification of the curve of which 
the equation is {x^ + 2/^ ) ^ — 4a6 {x^ -\-y'^) + 4«2 x^ = 0, 
where (a — 2b) {2a — b) = ah, depends upon an elliptic 
function of the first order, of which the modulus is 
l/T-2. 

13. An ellipsoid is cut by a plane, the distance of 
which from the centre bears a constant ratio to its dis- 
tance from the parallel tangent plane. Show that the 
volume of the cone Avhosebase is the section and vertex 
the centre of the ellipsoid is invariable. 

14. Having given the equations of a curve in space 

referred to three rectangular axes, find the length of a 

perpendicular from the origin upon the tangent at any 

point. 

a _ 

Ex. x=a cos e, y = a sin e, s = -o" (6^ + e ^). 



526 Five Y'ears in an English University. 

Prove that if the perpendicular be invariable the in- 
volute lies on the surlace of a sphere. 

/o dx b 

— (cos ax — cos hx) = log — , 



and that 



/ 



dx 1 + 2m cos ax-\-im^ ' a^ 

¥ ^°^ r+2^colte+m« = l^S = (1 + m) log ya 



or 



/ 1 \ a2 

log(l + -jlog^, 



according as m is less or greater than unity. 

16. A body P moves on a surface of a right cone, 
the axis of which is vertical and meets a horizontal 
plane in 8. Find the law of force to S by which a body 
may be retained in the curve which is the projection of 
^'s path on the plane. 

17. In a medium, the resistance of which is partly 
constant and partly varying as an integral power of the 
velocity, find the velocity of a projectile at any point of 
its path in terms of the inclination of the path to the 
horizon at that point. 

18. The circumpolar portion of the heavens is de- 
lineated according to the principle of Mercator's chart 
on the sector of a circle of which the arc represents a 
given parallel of declination, and the centre represents 
the pole. Find the radius of the arc which represents 
any other parallel. 

19. The Sun's light is refracted through a prism, the 
edge of which is vertical. Find the position of the re- 
fracting surfaces in order that for a given altitude of the 
Sun the deviation of the rays of a given color may be a 
minimum. 

If z be the Sun's zenith distance, >■ the refracting an- 
gle, X the angle of first incidence reduced to the hori- 



Appendix. 627 

zon, fi the index for the given color, show that the min- 
imum deviation D is given by the equations. 

-^ . . / ' \ . . ' 

sm "o" = sm s sm I ic — "o" J • sm x = fj- sm -^ . 



>/. ' 



v-j 



+ /1— \cOt22. 



20. Account for halos and mock Suns. Find the 
greatest altitude of the Sun at which the latter can be 
seen. 

21. A circular disc revolving about an axis through 
its centre perpendicular to its plane, which is inclined at 
a given angle to the horizon, is placed upon a smooth 
horizontal plane ; determine the motion. 

When the initial velocity of the circumference is vQry 
great compared to that acquired in 1" by a falling body, 
find the time and extent of the vertical oscillations of 
the centre of gravity. 

22. A comet in moving from one given point to an- 
other throws oiF at every instant small portions of its 
mass, which always bear the same ratio (n) to the mass 
which remains. If v be the velocity with which each 
particle is thrown off, a the inclination of its direction 
to the i-adius vector, prove that the period {t) will be 
diminished by 

-j^ < [f'—cf) yap . sm a — {r' — r) cos a I 

9 and f being the eccentric anomalies, r and r' the focal 
distances at the given points, a the mean distance, 2p 
the latus rectum, and /'the force at distance a. 

23. Find the position of a small rectilinear magnet, 
the centre of Avhich is fixed, when the action upon a 
distant particle of free magnetism is in a given direction. 

24 Waves are propagated along a canal of imiform 
depth and breadth, the motion of the particles being 



528 Five Years in an English Uoiiversity. 

small. Show that the square of the period of the waves 
is equal to 

27rAeA+ 1 
Q 4 tt/c 



e^—1 

k being the depth of the canal, ^ the length of the 
waves, and g the force of gravity. 



SENATE-HOUSE EXAMINATIOIn^. 
Feiday, Jan. 3, 1845. 9 . . . lU. 

1. Define compound ratio. 

Equiangular parallelograms have to one another the 
ratio which is compounded of the ratios of their sides. 

2. Draw a straight line perpendicular to a plane 
from a given point above it. 

a. Show how to find the number of positive integral 
solutions of ax -^by^=c, where a, h and c are integers. 

Find three simple fractions in arithmetical progres- 
sion whose denominators shall be 6, 9, 18, and whose 
sum shall be 2t. 

p. Assuming the expansion of (1 + a;)™, n being a 
positive integer, determine the relation between any 
two consecutive terms of (1 -\- x)-^. 

If f _^_ I be expanded in a series of ascending 

powers of jk, at what term will the series begin to con- 
verge, X being less than a ? 

5. An odd number of real roots of the equation 
f (x) = lies between each adjacent pair of real roots 
of/(x)=0. 

When all the real roots of /' {x) ^= can be obtamed, 
show how to determine the number and situation of 
the real roots of / {x)=^ 0. Ex. x'—^2x + 20 = 0. 



Appendix. 529 

6. Expand (cos ^Y i"^ ^ series of cosines of multiple 
arcs, n being a positive integer. 

From the result deduce the expansion of (sin ^)" . 

y. Find the locus of a point, from which if a pair of 
tangents be drawn 'to an ellipse, the straight line join- 
ing the points of contact shall pass through the tocus. 

(5. Determine the nature of any plane section of a 
right cone. If the cone be right-angled, what is the in- 
clination of its axis to the j)lanes of those sections the 

1 
eccentricity of which is -y= ? 

£. Prove that the equation to a plane passing through 
the origin of co-ordinates \% z=zAx-\^ By. Assign a 
geometrical meaning to A and B when the axes are 
oblique. 

From a given point O, OP is drawn meeting a given 
plane in ^, and the rectangle contained by OP., OQ is 
invariable ; what is the locus of P f 

1 

10. Differentiate - , loga, a, tan"'-^i — x 

a^ + l/l — a;2 



d'y 



\jdxj 



+ l'^\ into 



Transform the expression ^^^a 
one in which y is the independent variable. 

11. If xi be a function of the variables y, z,. . . each 
of which is a function of x, prove that 

du du dy ■ du dz. 
dx dy dx dz dx 

Apply this theorem to find -^ and — ^ from the 
^^ ^ dx . dx^ 

equation / (cc, y) = 0. 

12. Define the circle of curvature, and find express- 
ions for the radius of curvature and the co-ordinates of 
the centre of curvature at any point of a plane curve re- 
ferred to rectangular co-ordinates. 

23 



530 Five Years in an English University. 

The circle of curvature at any point of a parabola, 
except the vertex, cuts the axis at two points on oppo- 
site sides of the vertex. 

C. Investigate the integrals of 

V x^—a^ and x^^II^' 

Integrate 

dx x^dx 

x-]/x-\-a ' (^ — ^^) ' ya-\-b sec^ x dx 

n. Find the differential coefficient of the volume of a 
solid of revolution. 

Determine the volume of the solid generated by the 
revolution of the curve {x^-\-y^Y= a'^x'^-];-h^y^ about the 
axis of X, a being greater than b. And show what the 
result becomes when a is equal to 6. 



PROBLEMS. 

Sekate-House. Friday, Jan. 3, 1845, 1 ... 4. 

Divide a circle into two parts such that the angle 
contained in one segment shall equal twice the angle 
contained in the other. 

2. If Sr represents the series l*" + 2'" + 3'" + . . . -f- 
{p — l)*", and «! «2 . . . are the coefficients of cc cc*^ . . . in 
the expansion of (l+a;)'*-|-^ 

plp-n — l):=ai/iS\+a2'^2+ • • • + a^Sn.i-\-aiS^. 

3. A chord {PSP) is drawn through the focus {S) of 
an ellipse, and the points {P, P') are joined with the 
other focus {II)\ determine the condition of the area 
(PHP) being a maximum. Show that this problem is 
always possible. 

4. Two particles move in different planes about a 
centre which attracts with a force varying inversely as 
the square of the distance, the one in a circle, the other 
in an ellipse ; the orbits have two points in common, 
and at either of these points the velocity of one parti- 



Appendix. 531 

cle is to that of the other as n to 1. Determine the ec- 
centricity of the elUpse. 

5. A short-sighted person has a concave lens of insuf- 
ficient power; show that he may increase the power by 
incUning the lens slightly towards the line joining his 
eye and a distant object. 

6. In a parabola whose equation is y^:=l.x, the ordi- 
nates of three points, such that the normals pass through 
the same point, are 2/1,2/2, 2/3 ; prove that 

2/1+2/2+2/3=0, 
and that a circle described through these points passes 
through the vertex of the parabola. 

7. A pack of cards is laid on a table; each projects 
in the direction of the length of the pack beyond the 
one below it; if each projects as far as possible, prove 
that the distances between the extremities of the suc- 
cessive cards will form an harmonic progression. 

8. A very small bar of matter is movable about 
one extremity which is fixed half way between two cen- 
tres of force attracting inversely as the square of the 
distance ; if I be the length of the bar, and 2a the dis- 
tance between the centres of force, prove that there 
will be two positions of equilibrium for the bar, or fuur, 
according as the ratio of the absolute intensity of the 
more powerful force to that of the less powerful, is or 

is not greater than — — — ■ : and distinguish between 

the stable and unstable positions. 

9. A particle is placed on the surface of an ellipsoid, 
in the centre of which is resident an attractive force, de- 
termine the direction in which the particle will begin to 
move. 

10. A plane is drawn according to a certain assigned 
law cutting an ellipsoid ; find the locus of the vertex of 
the cone which touches the ellipsoid in the curve of in- 
tersection. 



X _,y 
If a, 5, cbe the semi-axes of the ellipsoid— +-5-+ 



532 Five Y'ears in an English University. 

the equation to the cutting plane, a, /?, 7 being connected 
by the relation 

a* h* c" 

— 2+^+^=constant, 

the locus will be a sphere. 

11. A sphere and ellipsoid which intersect are de- 
scribed about the same point as centre ; prove that the 
prodxict of the areas of the greatest and least sections 
of the ellipsoid, made by planes passing through the 
centre and any point in the line of intersection of the 
two surfaces, will be constant. 

12. Find the equation of a family of spirals which 
shall have this property, that the ratio of any two radii 
vectores at right angles to each other shall be constant. 

Show that r = a cos 4^ . ed is the equation of such a 
spiral, and trace it. 

13. If JF ix, — I be any symmetrical function of x 

1 

and — , then will 

CvJu \a/3u 
/» 8 =2 /^l , 

14. A smooth triangular board AUC, of which the 
angle C is obtuse, is fixed with its plane vertical, and 
the side AH resting on a horizontal plane : a weight is 
allowed to run down the side CA ; the board is suddenly 
unfixed; compare the pressure of the weight on the- 
board before and after it is allowed to move. 

277 

15. Prove that 



fgcos Ocos (sin e) dO= 27r, 



■K -j/1— C 

and that C *-i a-^= 

J 1 — ccos™^ 



Appendix. 533 

when c is indefinitely nearly equal to 1, m being a posi- 
tive quantity. 

16. Two equal heavy balls (A and I^) are thxis sus- 
pended; the ball (A) by a fine thread from a fixed 
point, and the ball (H) from the lowest point of the ball 
(A) by another fine thread of the same length as the 
former. The ball (J3) receives a slight horizontal blow, 
determine the motion. 

17. A smooth oblate spheroid, the centre of which is 
fixed, is revolving uniformly about its axis of figure, 
when it receives a normal blow ; determine the subse- 
quent motion, and show that the instantaneous axis of 
rotation will always lie in the surface of a right cone. 

18. Having the following approximate data : 

-1 Z/^'— 1 

for rain-water cos a/ — tt — =76°. 40' 

and cos y^—j^— =4(50_4Q.. 

obliqiaity of ecliptic = 23°. 30' : 
latitude of London = 51°. 30' : 
show that, in the latitude of London, no portion of a 
tertiary rainbow can be seen by an observer, whose 
back is turned towards the sun, if the sun be distant 
from the summer solstice by an angle greater than that 
determined from the equation sec 0=2 cos 11°. 30'. 

19. A ray of light is incident from the centre of an 
ellipsoid, the inner surface of which is polished, and the 

.equation of which is— ^-{--p-(-—r= 1 ; prove that the 

equations to the reflected ray will be 

X, — X y, — y z, — z 



X 



Of:-0 y^-') <%-') 



where xyz are the coordinates of the points of inci- 

1 x"^ j.y^ .z^ 

dence, and — ^ = — r i- rrT-— 7. 

' p^ a* 0* c^' 



534 Five Y'ears in an English University. 

20. Assuming the result of the preceding question, 
prove that all rays, which after reflection pass through 
the line tc = y = s, were before reflection in the surface 
of the cone defined by the equation 

21. Trace the locus of the equation 



, =j log -^ 1 — 2cos0 e-siii--|- e~ 



^ ■' 

22. The vibrations of an elastic medium being de- 
fined by the equations 

— = -T- = — =z F (^vt — Ix — 7ny — nz, 

where a; + a, y-)-/?, s + 7 are the co-ordinates at the 
time ^ of a molecule whose co-ordinates in the state of 
rest are cc, 2/, ^, and a, 5, c are certain constants ; the 
vibrations will be transversal to the direction of propa- 
gation if 

da d(3 dy 

dx ~^ dy~^ dz'~' 

23. Two pipes, closed at one end and open at the 
other, one of which is slightly longer than the other, but 
which are in all other respects exactly similar, are placed 
side by side, and made to sound their fundamental 
notes ; prove that the resultant will vary from silence to 
twice the intensity of either of the pipes sounded singly, 
and the interval between two successive silences will be 

— - — -, where a is the velocity of sound, and I , I' the 

lengths of the pipes. It may be assumed that the type 

2 
of aerial vibrations is c sin — {at — x). 

A 

24. If the horizontal magnetic force of the Earth at 
any point on its surface be resolved into two, JC in the 
direction of the geographical meridian, and I" in that 



Appendix. 535 

perpendicular to it, and JTbe given generally as a func- 
tion of the latitude and longitude, then I^may be fully 
determined ; but if Y be given, the same proposition 
cannot be asserted concerning JC. 

This is the paper in which the Senior Wrangler did 
nineteen problems. 



SENATE-HOUSE EXAMINATION. 
Saturday, Jan. 4, 1845. 9 . . . Hi-. 

1. The thickness of a plano-convex lens is one-fifth 
of an inch, and its breadth is two inches, find the radius 
of its spherical surface. 

2. The radius of the circle, which touches an hyper- 
bola and its asymptotes, is equal to that part of the latus 
rectum produced which is intercepted between the curve 
and the asymptote. 

3. Two persons A and B walk to meet each other 
from the extremities of a line AH ; a third person C, 
who walks faster than either A or B, starts with vl,and 
when he meets B turns back, and so on till they all come 
together; the distance (7 walks in the direction ^2? is 
twice that Avhich he walks in the contrary direction, and 
when they all come together he has passed over a space 
equal to AB ; show that the rates of A, B, C are as 
1, 2, 3. 

4. If two circles can be described so that each shall 
touch the other and three sides of a quadrilateral figure, 
one-fourth of the difference of the sums of the opposite 
sides is a mean proportional between the radii. 

Express the area of the quadrilateral figure in terms 
of the sides and the radii of the circles. 

5. A plane mirror, movable about an axis in its own 
plane parallel to the axis of the Earth, revolves from 
east to west with half the Sun's apparent diurnal mo- 



536 Five ITears in an English University. 

tion. Show that the direction of the reflected rays of 
sun-light will not be sensibly altered during the day. 

6. A fine elastic string is tied round two equal cylin- 
ders whose surfaces are in contact and axes parallel,"^ the 
string not being stretched beyond its natnial length ; 
one of the cylinders is turned through two right angles, 
so that the axes are again parallel; find the tension of 
the string, supposing a weight of 1 lb. would stretch it 
to twice its natural length. 

7. A uniform sphere movable about a fixed point in' 
its surface rests against an inclined plane ; find the 
pressure on the fixed point. Supposing the diameter 
which passes through the fixed point to be horizontal, 
show that if the plane be suddenly removed the 
pressure will be increased or diminished according as 
the inclination of the plane was less or greater tan - ^ f . 

8. The cross wires of an equatorial are out of adjust- 
ment ; show how to find the distance of the intersection 
of the cross wires from the true centre of the field by 
observation of a known star. 

9. On a given day the curves traced out by the ex- 
tremities of the shadows of objects of the same vertical 
height, in whatever latitude they may be, have the same 
curvature at noon. 

10. If F (x) be an algebraical polynomial of less 
than n dimensions, 

/« F {x) dx 1 c?"-^ f a — c I 

11. Find a curve, such that if perpendiculars bo 
drawn fi'om two given points upon the tangent at any 
point, the area included by the perpendiculars the tan- 
gent and the distance between the points shall be a 
maximum. 

12. If from any point tangent planes are drawn to a 
surface of the nXh order, the points of contact will all 
lie on a surface of the (/i — l)th ordei*. 

x^ y"^ z^ 

13. All sections of the surface ^+ ;T~f "~2 = 1> . 



Appendix. 537 

which are at the same distance p from its centre, have 
their centres in the surface of which the equation is 

Va^ + ^,2 -t- c^J —p y^i -r j^i-\- c^J 

14. Eight centres of force, resident in the corners of 
a cube, attract, according to the same law and with the 
same absolute intensity, a particle placed very near the 
centre of the cube : show that the resultant action passes 
through the centre of the cube, imless the law of force 
be that of the inverse square of the distance. 

15. A number of equal particles, attracting each 
other directly as the distance, are constrained to move 
in parallel tubes ; if the positions of the particles be 
given at the commencement of the motion, determine 
the subsequent motion of each ; and show that the par- 
ticles will oscillate symmetrically with respect to the 
plane perpendicular to the tubes, which passes through 
their centre of gravity at the commencement of the 
motion. 

16. A hollow sphere, filled with equal quantities of 
two incompressible fluids which do not mix, revolves 
uniformly about its vertical diameter, and the fluid par- 
ticles are relatively at rest. Find the angular velocity, 
supposing that the lighter fluid just touches the lowest 
point in the surlace of the sphere. 

17. An ellipsoid floats in stable equilibrium in a fluid 
of double its density. Compare the time of a small 
oscillation about either axis of the plane of floatation 
with the time of a small vertical oscillation. 

18. The value of the definite integral 
2 log (1 + ^ cos- d) dd 



s- 



may be found, whatever positive value is given to w, 
from the formula 
23* 



538 Five Years in an English University. 
C^\og{\-\-nco&^e)de^= 



-J log {(i+^)(i+^o(i + M-.-!, 

where n^ni^n^... are quantities connected by the equa- 
tion 

n ^2 

r-\- 1 



4K+1) • 



SENATE-HOUSE EXAMINATION. 
Saturday, Jan. 4, 1845. 1, . .4. 

1. Find the value of /31 /2 + /q /o *^ ^"^^ 

places of decimals. 

2. The ratio of the number of combinations of 4n 
things taken 2n together to that of 2n things taken n to- 
gether is 

1.3.5...(4?z— 1) 
(1 . 3 . 5 ... 2 n—iy- 
a. A coin is thrown up 20 times in succession ; what 
is the probability that the head will present itself an odd 
number of times ? 

/?. Prove that (cos 6 -f- -|/ — 1 sin 0)^ = cos md -\- 



1/ — 1 sin mff, whether m be integral or fractional, posi- 
tive or negative. 

5. Investigate the position of a point whose distance 
from any point of the curve y^=^lx -\- nx^ is a rational 
function of the abscissa. 

7. The shortest distance between two straight lines 
is perpendicular to both. 

6. A straight line and a curve of the n*^ order can- 
not have more than oi points in common. 



Appendix. 539 

Prove that every straight line which touches a curve 
of the third order must also cut the curve. In what 
case will it cut it at the point of contact ? 

8. Prove that the curve whose equation is y -f cc log« 
a;;=0 touches the axis of y at the origin, but for a suffi- 
ciently small positive value of cc lies further from it than 
any curve Avhose equation is y^ax'^ which touches it. 

e. Reduce 
{ax -\- by) {xdy — ydx) {a'x + h'y) dy -\- {a" + h"y) dx 

= 
to a linear equation, and integrate the following equa- 
tions, 

xdy -\- ydx=^xyzdz, 
dz dz 
dx dy 

10. Describe Newton's telescope with Ramsden's 
eye-piece, and trace a pencil from a given point in the 
object to the eye. 

Show what ought to be the form of the plane mirror 
in order to stop as little light as possible. Supposing 
the longer diameter of such a mirror 2 inches, and the 
diameter of the object-mirror 8 inches, find approxi- 
mately what fraction of each incident pencil is stopped. 

C. Prove that an algebraical equation, whose roots are 
not all real, must have an even number of impossible 
roots. 

■n. When a particle moves under the action of any 
forces in one plane, the effective accelerating force on 
the particle at the time t is equivalent to 

dv , 

-jT m the direction of the tangent, 

and — in that of the normal to the j^ath described, 

V being the velocity at the time, t and p the radius of 
curvature. 

Apply the above expressions to find the orbit de- 
scribed by a particle about a centre of force varying di- 



540 Five ITeai's in an English University. 

rectly as the distance, and find wliere ttie tangential 
force is greatest. 

13. Describe accurately the phenomena of Newton's 
rings, and show how they may be accounted for on the 
theory of interferences. 

If the rings be formed between a prism and a lens, 
and the angle of incidence at the second surface of the 
prism exceed the critical angle, what appearance is pre- 
sented ? What conclusion would this seem to warrant 
respecting the extent of the molecular influence of glass 
on the luminiferous ether ? 



SENATE-HOUSE EXAMINATION. 

Moi^DAT, Jan. 6, 1845. 9 ... Hi. 

1. Determine the equation of the diameter of a 
given system of parallel chords in an ellipse ; and prove 
that if one diameter be parallel to the chords of an- 
other, the latter diameter will also be parallel to the 
chords of the former. 

2. There are four numbers, the first three of which 
are in geometrical progression ; and the last three in 
arithmetical; the sura of the first and last is 14, and 
that of the second and third 12; find the numbers. 

a. Show how to calculate the three roots of a cubic 
equation by means of trigonometrical tables, the roots 
being all real. 

4. How is the existence of a conjugate point indi- 
cated analytically ? Determine whether there is such a 
point in the curve whose equation is 

y'^ — Ixy-^-'ix^ — x^^ 0. 

Trace the locus of the equations " :r=sin / ^ \ 

\a)' 

/?. Prove that a recurring series may in general be 
resolved into a number of geometrical series. What ex- 
ception is there to this proposition ? 



Appendix. 541 

y. Show how, by pai'ticular observations, the longi- 
tude of tlie node and the inclination of a planet's orbit 
may be determined. 

7. Integrate the partial differential equation 

dz dz 

dx "'" dy~~ '' 

Mj iVand P being functions of x, y and z. 

Distinguish between the complete primitive and the 
general jirimitive of a partial differential equation of the 
first order. 

6. Apply D'Alembert's principle to prove the general 
dynamical equation 

z.|(x--)..+(r--.>.+(^--)4 

= 0, and hence deduce the six equations of motion of a 
rigid body. 

What postulate is involved in the ordinary mode of 
applying D'Alembert's principle to establish the funda- 
mental equation of Hydrodynamics ? 

e. Find the number of vibrations in one second cor- 
responding to the fundamental note of a straight tube 
open at one end and closed at the other. 

How may the velocity of sound in any gas be meas- 
ured ? 

C. Investigate formulae for determining the effect of 
a small disturbing force on the oscillations of a simple 
cycloidal pendulum. 

Hence show that the time of oscillation will not be 
sensibly affected by the resistance of the air, supposing 
the amount of the resistance to depend solely on the 
velocity of the pendulum. 

11. Prove that in every siirface of the second order 
which has a centre, there are three principal diametrical 
planes at right angles to one another. 



542 Five Years in an English University. 

SENATE-HOUSE EXAMINATION. 

Monday, Jan. 6, 1845. 1. . .4. 

1. The positions of three stations A^B and C, have 
been laid down on a map, and an observer at D (a sta- 
tion in the same horizontal plane as A,Ii and G) deter- 
mines the angles ADB and BDC\ give a geometrical 
construction for laying down I) on the map. 

a. If jo be a prime number and a be not divisible by 
jo, then ai''^ is of the form mp -\- 1 ; and the index of 
the lowest power of a which has this form is either p — 1 
or a sub-multiple of it. 

3. The number of faces of any polyhedron, added to 
that of its corners, exceeds the number of its edges by 
two. 

/?. Show that 

V u 

l/r sin 2 =\/a{l — e) sin -^^ 

— V u 

"l/r cos 2 = i/« (1 — e) cos -^y 

■where u is the eccentric anomaly of a planet, v its true 
anomaly, r its radius vector, a the semi-axis major and e 
the eccentricity of its orbit. 

5. Prove Legendre's theorem for solving a spherical 
triangle, the lengths of the sides of which are small 
compared to the radius of the sphere. 

Show how to apply the theorem, if two sides and the 
included angle of the triangle are given. 

6. A particle moves on a smooth surface, and is 
acted on by no force except the reaction of the surface ; 
determine the differential equation of its path. 

7. Prove that in a compound pendulum the centres 
of oscillation and suspension are reciprocal. 

J. Determine whether there are any places on the 
Earth's surface at which a given solar eclipse appears 
central, and, if there are, show how to find their latitude 
and longitude. 



Appendix. 543 

6. Examine the effect produced on the position of 
the Moon's nodes by the ablatitious force. 

Show the plane of a satellite's orbit as affected by 
the oblateness of the primary. 

£. Two convex lenses of the same substance have the 
same axis; determine the distance between them in 
order that the combination may form an achromatic 
eye-piece for an astronomical telescope. 

11. Show that a term in the expansion of the dis- 
turbing function, which goes through all its values in a 
period nearly equal to that of the disturbed planet, will 
produce a considerable inequality in the radius vector. 



SENATE-HOUSE EXAMINATION". 

Tuesday, Jan. 7, 1845. 9. ..11^. 

du da du 

1. Tkansfokm ccy- + y-ir -\- sy + . . . mto an ex- 

pression in which a;,— > — ,... shall be the independent 

variables. 

2. If the complete integral of the linear equation 

/(l)2' = » w 

be known, show how to integrate the equation 

/(l)y = *W (2); 

and if the coefficients of the equation (1) are constant, 
and the roots of the equation y (m) = are ax a-i.. .Un, 
prove that the integral of (2) is 

y=^e^>''Jdxe^<^i-<^,)'' Cdxe^''^-'^^)''... Cdxe\'~^n-i' 

\dxe-°'J'(p {x). 



544 Five Years in an English University. 

a. Investigate the relation between the amplitudes 
of two elliptic functions (having the same modulus) and 
that of a third equal to their sum or difference. 

A body attached to a fixed point by a string revolves 
in a vertical circle ; find the arc described in a quarter 
of the time of one revolution after the body leaves the 
highest point, the tension of the string at that point be- 
ing- zero. 



4. Prove that y^^ax-^-a^ and y=^\ t — h ( — \y > 4 



\-h{-iy\ 



X 



are distinct solutions of the same equation in finite dif- 
ferences ; and hence show how either of them may be 
derived from the other by treating the parameter (a or 
h) as variable. 

/?. Assuming the equations of motion of the Moon, 
obtain the accurate differential equation for calculating s, 
the tangent of the inclination of the Moon's radius vec- 
tor to the plane of the ecliptic. 

Show that the integral of -jtj^ + s = will not be a 

first approximation to the valine of s after several revo- 
lutions of the Moon, and find the true first approxima- 
tion. 

■y. Investigate the law of variation of the density in 
the interior of the Earth supposed at rest, the pressure 
at any point being assumed to vary as the square of the 
density. 

How is the mean density of the Earth determined ? 
6. Prove the following formula for the variation of 
the mean distance in a disturbed orbit, 

da, %ia^ dR 

dt II de 

Assuming the approximate equations 

de, na dR dn, na dR 

dt ne dT^ dt (ue de 

calculate the inequality of the fourth order in the longi- 



Appendix. 545 

tude of a disturbed planet arising from the following 
term in the development of Ji, 

PeH"" cos j 13 {nt + e) — 8 {n't + t') — Stt — 2;r' j *. 

8. Two pei'fectly similar series of waves of common 
white light of equal intensity emanate from two points 
A^ li, very near each other. Calculate the appearance 
produced on a sufficiently distant screen, a normal to 
which meets the line A B at right angles. 

Explain how the result of the investigation may be 
applied to detei-mine the length of an undulation. 



SENATE-HOUSE EXAMINATION". 

Tuesday, Jan. 7, 1845. 1. . .4. 

1- Va, Vb,...Vc being values of v corresponding to 
values «, b, . . .c of x, establish the following formula of 
mterpolation, 

{x — b) ... (x — c) jx — a ).. .(x — c) 

(a — o) ... [a — c) ' \o — a). . .{b — c) ' 

Show that if ^,1 = ^6=... Vc, the value of v given 
by this formula is independent of x. 

2. Find the position of the plane, with respect to 
which the sum of the moments of the momenta of the 
different particles of a material system is a maximum, 
none of the forces of the system being extraneous to 
it, and show that this position is invariable. 

In the application of this result to the solar system, 
is it necessary to take into account the motion of the 
sun and planets about their respective axes ? 

* d ^= nt -\- e -{- 2 e sin {nt -\- e — tt) -\- &c. 



546 Five ITears in an English University. 

a. If a, a', /?, /?' be quantities subject to the conditions 

then "will 

/ (a COS u-{- a' Bmu, ^ COS u -\- j3 sin u) du = 
r 





y (cos w, sin u) du. 




/ 



What is meant by the principal value of a definite 
integral which presents itself under an indeterminate 
form? 

4. A plate of Iceland spar is bounded by planes per- 
pendicular to the axis of the crystal : determine the dif- 
ference of the retardations of the ordinary and extraor- 
dinary wave fronts, light being incident nearly in the 
direction of the axis. Give a general explanation of 
the origin of the colored rings produced when a crys- 
talline body is interposed between a polarizing and an 
analyzing plate. 

/?. If the equation to the surface of a nearly spher- 
ical homogeneous body of density p be 

r=a{l + «(2/o + 2/1 + 2/2 + ..■)!> 

(where a is a very small quantity and y^, y\i y^. . .La- 
place's coeificients), and V be the potential of its attrac- 
tion on an external particle, the distance of which from 
the origin is c, prove that 

^^ 47rpa^ , 4:7rpa^\ , 2/i ^ , 2/2 «2 , f 

^==~3^ + "^'^2/o+y^ + y- + -.. y 

Hence show that, if the attracted particle be on 
the surface of the attracting body, the expression 

dV 
V -}- 2a J has the same value for all bodies differing 



Appendix. 547 

very slightly in magnitude fi'om the sphere, the radius 
of which is a. 

6. Investigate the condition in order that 



X 






dx may be a maximum or a minimum. 

Show that, whatever function y is of x, if y and z are 

di/ dz 

so related that (p (x, y, -v-. . .) = ■,!, (x, ^,~j~ • ■ >), then Asy 

= JBSz, where A is the expression which equated to 
zero forms the condition of maximum or minimum for 
/(pdx, and J3 is the corresponding expression for ftpdx. 

y. If p, p' be the two principal radii of curvature at 
any point of a curve surface, and R the radius of curva- 
ture of a normal section inclined at an angle a to the 
principal section corresponding to the former, 

1 COS'^a Sin^a 

6. Investigate the equation for determining the per- 
manent temperature of any part of a prism of small 
transverse section. 

If the two extreme sections of the prism be main- 
tained at constant temperatures, and its length be sup- 
posed divided into any number of equal parts, and Vi, 
17 2, v-i. . .be the temperatures at these points of division, 

Vp -\-Vp + 2. 

prove that is a constant quantity. 



548 Fwe Years in an English University, 



CLASSICAL TRIPOS. 

1845. 
Two and a half Hours. 
Translate into Lati^st Hexameters : 

Black as night 
The dungeon * * * * Two sentinels 
In iron armour cased, dim torches held 
Before the portal. On her lily cheek 
The sullen lustre glared. A fatal draught, 
Hemlock or atropa, beside her placed, 
Excluded hope; one hand was on the bowl 
Irresolute : the other propped her brow, 
From which neglected the bright ringlets streamed 
On her white bosom, which heaved strong and slow. 
Beside her stood in hierarchal robes 
Ravenna's priest ; two damsels tired in white 
Seemed bridemaids, listening for the nuptial vow 
In that sepulchral chamber. 

A gloomy fosse 
Yawned thro' the floor, where stood two shapes succinct 
For their funereal labours and prepared 
To render dust to dust. 

Thus willed 
Hard Valentinian, to a sister's guilt 
Relentless ; instant death, and in that vault 
Oblivious inhumation ; or the choice 
Of hymeneal bonds with one abhorred, 
Too feeble o'er the imperial throne to cast 
Umbrage and fear. 

Despairing thrice 
The deadly bowl she lifted, and thrice stopped 
Appalled. 

Slowly at length, with no consenting will, 
And eyes averse, she stretched her beauteous hand 
To that detested bridegroom, and received 
The nuptial blessing, to her anguished heai-t 
Worse than a malediction. Then burst forth 



Appendix. 549 

Grief impotent. Grasping the forbidden bowl, 
Frantic she strove for what she late refused, 
That baneful drink ; and, baffled, cast her limbs 
Into the loathsome grave, imploring death. 



Into Ltkics : 
* 



Again those sounds sweep on, 
Crushing the air to sweetness ; 

They came, and they are gone : 
Again my dreams desert me, 

I sit once more alone. 

When from some doomed city 
Her Gods depart, such sound 

Of mixed reproof and pity. 
In refluent airs half drowned, 

Is heard at night among the clouds. 
By kneelers on the ground. 



650 Five Years in an English University. 



CLASSICAL TRIPOS. 
February^ 1845. 
Three Sours. 
Translate : 

AHAOI 6e oh kot' ^v [lovvov aXka iravraxv V laTjyopijj ug lari 
XpTj/ia GKovdalov' el Kal ' A'&Tjvaloi rvpavvevSjxevoi fiev ovSa/uuv tuv 
C(j>iag TTspioi/ceovTuv eaav to, iroMfiia a/ieivovg, aivaXkax'&EVTEg 6e 
Tvpdvvuv fiaKpS) irpuToc tyivovTo' Srfkol uv ravra, on Karex^fievoi. 
[lev td^eXoKCLKSov, ug dEarvdrr) kpyal^6/J.EV0i' £7i,ev& Epu-^evTuv 6e aiirbg 
EKacTog euvtC) npo'&vfiEETO KaTEpydl^EcdaL' ovtoi [Iev vvv ravra 
ETvprjaaov. 

Q?j(3aioi Jf /XETO, ravra kg i?eov ETVEfiirov^ l3ov2,6fi£voc riaaty&at 
' A-&T]vaiovg' rj 6e Hv^irj awb c(f)Euv fisv avTEuv ovk e<j>t] avrolacv 
slvai riaiVj kg 7zo7iv<prj[j,ov 6h k^EVElnavrag EufkEVE ruv ayxi(yra 
SsEad-at' CLTrEMSvTuv i>v ■&E0Tzp6nuv^ i^E^spov to xRV^^'^'VP'^ov aUrjV 
irot?}(jd/j,evot. ug tirvvd-avovro Se TiEydvruv avrkuv ruv ayxi^'^Ta 
dEEff'&ac, EiTrav oi Qrijialot dKovaavrsg tovteuv' " Oi/c uv dyxiora 
^fiEuv oiKEOvai TavaypaloL re Kal Kopuvaloi Kal QEawiEEg, Kal ovroi 
yE a/xa rifilv a'lEl p.ax6fJ.EV0i ivpod^v/iug avvSiacpipovai, rbv 7r62,£/J.ov ; 
ri 6ei tovteuv yE dsEadac ; aXka jiaXkov jirj oil rovro y rb 
Xprjarripiov ; " 

What Grecian state would you mention as proving 
the assertion in the first paragraph, and as connected 
with the meaning of the oracle ? You may illustrate 
from Euripides. 

What variety of construction do verbs of sense admit 

of? 



"OTI iiEV yap al ^olviaaai vrJEg ektol koi TEffaap&Kovra Kal 
EKarbv fiEXpi 'AaiTEvSov d(j)iKovro aafkg kari' 6i6ti Se ovk ■^2,d-ov 
txo'Kkax'i} EiKa^Erai' oi filv yap Iva SiarplSri a.TZE'k&uv uawEp Kal 
SiEvor/d-Tj TO. ruv TlEloirowTjcriav' Tpo<fifjv yovv ovSev Se2,tiov aAA.i 
Kal ;if£2/Jox' 6 Ha/xug, '9 irpoaErax^Vi TvapEixEV' ol Se Iva rovg 



Appendix. 551 

^oiviKug Tzpoayayuv iq ttjv 'AckevSov iKXP'>]l^(i''''LaaLTo ckjiecc, Kal yap 
&g avTolg ovSsv efisX'Ke ;i;p^(je(Ti?ar a?.?Mi Se ug KaTa(>ofjg evEKa 
Tijg kg AaKEdaifiova, to [or rtj] ^.syEa^ac ug ovk aSiKsl, d/l/lo Kal 
aa^ag olx^Tai iirl rag vavg a2,?j-&ug TrsTzXripu/iEvag' kjiol fiivroi 
doKei <Ta<pE(jTaTov slvai Tptdfjg eveko Kal avaKuxvg tuv 'EXTlt/vikuv 
TO vavTiKov OVK ayaye'cv, (p&opdg fiEv, iv bau ivap^Ei kKelae /cat 
dik/i£2,XEVy avtauGEug 6e, brrog firjdETEpovg npoa'&EfiEvog laxvpoTepovg 
izoiTjai}. knsl Elys kdovXij^Tj * ScaTroTiS/iycac, ETTKpaveg Stjkov ovk. 
ivSoiaaTug. 'Kofj.lcag yap av AaKE6aifiovioig ttjv vlktjv koto, to EiKog 
eJwKev, oi ye Kal kv ru napovri avTinakug fiaTJiov fj vTvo^EEOTEpug 
T6J vavTiKu av^upfiovv' KaTa(j)Upa ds /xaXiara Kal ijv e^tte npdcpaaiv 
ov KO/iiffag Tag vavg. *E^7 yap avTag kXdcraovg fj baag [iaaiTievg 
ira^E ^vTCkEy^vai' 6 6e x^P^'" ^^ dijnov kv tovtu /jtEil^u eti £(j;j;ev, 
ovTE ava?iu(jag woTiXa tuv jiaacMug, to. te avTO. aw' kXaaaovuv 
•Kpa^ag. 

* You may adopt any aiathorized reading you prefer, 
what is the imperfect of £«>«, and what the aorist (in use) 
of itjiii ? Give some account of the person alluded to 
above, his character compared with that of a contempo- 
rary Satrap, and his influence upon the war and fortunes 
of Alcibiades. 



KAI T7]v jiev KAwi?w r?) de^ig, x^^P'' k<paTZTO/XEvriv avvETncTpk^Eiv 
Tov CLTpaKTOv T^v E^u TTEptipopoVj diaXEiTTOvaav xP^'^(''^i '^V'" ^^ 
'ATpoTTOv Ty apLCTEpa Tag kvTog av uaavTug' tt/v de AdxEOiv kv 
fiipEi EKUTEpag EKUTEpa Ty X^'-P'- k(j)dTTTEa-&ai' lt(pdg ovv, knEiSi) 
CKpiKEad^ai, Ev&vg 6eIv Ikvai npbg t^v Aaxscriv' wpoiprjTTjv ovv Tiva 
Oipag npuTov fikv kv Ta^Ei Siaaryaac, ewEtTa, Xa66vTa kK tuv Tijg 
AaxkoEug yovaTuv K2.^povg te Kal 6iuv TrapadEiy/iaTa, dva6avTa kni 
Ti 6ijfia vtpT/lbv eitteIv 'AvdyKT/g -d-vyaTpbg KbpTjg Aaxkffeug Myovg. 
"irvxal k<pT/fiEpoi, dpxv a.XX.rjg nEptoSov ■&v^tov ykvovg davaTri^dpov^ 
ovx vfidg 6ai.fj.uv Xt/^etoi. aTJC v/iElg dai/xova aipygEa-&£' npuTog 
J* 6 ?iax<^v TzpuTog aipEia^u tiov ^u cvvecTai if avdyKTig' apsTy 
ie aSiaTTOTOv, fjv Tifiuv Kal aTtfid^uv ttXeov Kal eXottov avrijg 
EKaoTog i^Ei' aWca klofiivov' dEog dvaiTiog. TavTa EindvTa plipai 
lirl TTavTag Toiig KXfjpovg' tov 6e nap avTov nEoovTa EKaoTov 
avaipEia'&ai irX^v ov' i 6e ovk kg,v. tu Se aveXo/iivu 6rj2x)V elvai 



552 Five Years in an English University. 

bnoaroq elTJixeiv. fiera 6e tovto av-&ig to. tuv 6iuv napadeiy/u.aTa 
elg TO irpda^ev afuv ■Beivai tni tjjv yyv, iroTi-v TcTieio) tuv napdvruv. 
slvai 6e TvavTodawa. 

Trace historically the doctrine above implied. How 
does Plato elsewhere use the word irapaSEiy/xara, and 
with what synonyms, in what relations ? 



OTK eari 6' d-rr'Xovv ovSe to Traax^iv^ aXXa to fcev cpd-opd Tig 
irrb tov kvavTiov, to 6e auTT)pia iiaXkov tov dwdfiei bvTog vwb tov 
EVTe?i£xeia ovTog Kot 6jj.oiov, ovTug ug dvva/nig Ije* Trpbg evTeXexeiav' 
"Qeupovv yap ■yiyveTai to ex^i' '^V'^ kmcrrjiirjv^ owsp fj ovk ectiv 
aXAoiovad^ai (etf aiiTo yap y kniSocrig Kal Elg EVTEAixEcav) t) STEpov 
jEvog aX7i,oiuaEug. Alo ov KaXcbg £X£i "^^EyEuv to (ppovovv, OTav fpovy, 
aXXoLovcy&aij oxxiTEp ov6e tov oIttoSS/iov otuv olKo6o/iy. To /xev ovv 
Eig kvTEXixEiav ayov ek 6vvdfj.EC ovTog /cara to voovv Kal (ppovovv 
ov SidacTKaXlav dXTC irspav £iTuvv/j,i.av Exetv StKaiov' to 6' ek dwdtiEt 
bvTog fiavd-dvov Kal ?ia/j,6dvov kivcaT'f/fnjv vtto tov £VTE2.EX£ia bvTog 
6idac!Ka\iKov tjtol ov6e irdax^i-v (l>aTE0v, ucnrsp ElprjTac, rj Svo Tporcovg 
a7J\,0Luc!Eug, ttjv te ettI rag aTEprjTiKag dta^Eas/g fiETaSoX^v Kal tt/v 
ettI Tag E^sig Kal Tyv <pvaiv. Tov d' al(y&7}TiKov y /isv npuTrj /ietuSoA^ 
ylvETat VKO tov yEvvuvTog, brav Se yEVVTj'&fi, ex£i V^V uaiTEp kinaTiju.Tjv 
Kal Tb alad-dvECf&ai. Kal to Kaf tvipyEiav 6e o/xoiug MyETai T(f> 
■&£up£lv 6ia(pEpEc 6ej oTi TOV fiEV TO. iroiriTiKO, TTJg EVEpyEiag e^uSev, 
Tb oparbv Kal to axovcTTdv o/xoiug 6e Kal to. Xocwd tuv alad-riruv. 
AiTLov (3' OTi Tuv /cai9-' sKOffTov 7} KaT EvkpyEiav alad-Tjaig, rj 6"ETiiaT^ii7] 
TO)v Ka&oTMV' TavTa d' kv avTij wug kari ttj ipv^V- ^'o voijaai. /isv 
Elf avT(I), oTvdTav SovTiTjrai, al(jd^dv£crd-ai 6' ovk ett' avTu' dvayKolov 
yap VTrdpx£iv to ala^&yTbv. 'Ofioiug Se tovt' ex£i kuv Tolg 

eincT'{]fiaig Talg tuv alod^r/Tuv, Kal 6ia Tyv avTtjV alTcav, OTt Ta 
TKiv Ka-&' EKadTa Kal tuv e^u'&ev. 

How, and apparently from what error, does Cicero 
translate evteMxem ? Define the term. 

What Greek philosopher first introduced the distinc- 
tion between tuv kv^' kKacTov and tuv Ka-&61ov'^ How on 
this point does the system of Aristotle seem to touch 
that of Plato ? 



Appendix. 553 



CLASSICAL TRIPOS. 

February^ 1845. 
Tioo and a half Sours. 
TRAi<rsLATE into Latiit Prose : 
Our business is to attain knowledge, not concerning 
obvious and vulgar matters, but about sublime, abstruse, 
intricate, and knotty subjects, remote from common ob- 
servation and sense ; to get sure and exact notions 
about which will try the best forces of our mind with 
their utmost endeavors ; in firmly settling principles, 
in strictly deducing consequences, in orderly digesting 
conclusions, in faithfully retaining what we learn by our 
contemplation and study. And if to get a competent 
knowledge about a few things, or to be reasonably skil- 
ful in any sort of learning, be difficult, how much indus- 
try doth it require to be well seen in many, or to have 
waded through the vast compass of learning, in no part 
whereof a scholar may conveniently or handsomely be 
ignorant ; seeing there is such a connection of things, 
and dependence of notions, that one part of learning 
doth confer light to another, that a man can hardly well 
understand anything without knowing divers other 
things; that he will be a lame scholar, who hath not an 
insight into many kinds of knowledge; that he can 
hardly be a good scholar, who is not a general one. 
The knowledge of such things is not innate to us ; it 
doth not of itself spring up in our minds ; it is not any 
ways incident by chance, or infused by grace (except 
rarely by miracle ;) common observation doth not pro- 
duce it ; it cannot be purchased at any rate, except by 
that, for which it was said of old the gods sell all things, 
that is for pains ; without which, the best wit and great- 
est capacity may not render a man learned, as the best 
soil will not yield good fruit or grain, if they be not 
planted or sown therein. 
24 



654 Five Years in an English University, 



CLASSICAL TRIPOS. 

February, 1845. 
Three Sours. 
Translate into Eitglish Prose: 

^G ■k6ttoi., 7] pa rig tare kol eIv 'At6ao SSfzoim 

ipvx^, icat elduiXov' arap (ppeveg ovk eve ird/xTrav. 

'Kavvvxiv yo.p fj.01 TiaTpOKkTJoQ 6el7ioIo 

fpvxv i^ecTijKEi yo6uca re, fivpo/ih^ re, 

Kai fioc eKacTT eTceTeXXev' Hkto 6e S-eaKeXov aiiT^. 

S)g (j)dro' roiai 6e Trdaiv v(p' Ifiepov upas ydoio, 

fivpo/i^voiai 6e rolac (j>dv>] pododdKTvT^og 'Hwf 

afi(fl vEKvv eXeeivSv. drdp Kpeluv 'Ayafiefivuv 

ovpr/dg t urpwe, /cat dvepag, a^e/xev vTitjv, 

7rdvT0-&ev en kIujiuv' twl 6' dv^p ea-d-Xbg bpSpsi, 

Mj^pidvtjg, depdncdv dyanfjvopog 'iSofievijog. 

ol d' laav, vTiordjiovQ TreXeKeag ev x^P'^^'" exovreg, 

aeipdg r' evrrMKrovg' Ttpo 6' dp' ovpTJeg kIov avrav' 

iToXld 6' dvavra, ndravTa, ndpavrd re, 66xfti-d t' ^"k&ov. 

aTCk' bre dfj KVTjfiovg irpoaeSav TvoXviriSaKog 'ISrjg, 

avTLii dpa Spvg v-rpLKdjiovg ravayicec x^'^'^V 

rd/ivov eneiydfievoL' ral 6e fieyd^a KTvneovGai 

irinTov. rag /xev eneira diawTiyaaovTeg 'Axaiol 

eKdeov rjfudvuv' ral 6e x'^dva izoaal SarevvTO, 

sKddiievaL TzeSioio, Sid puTryia •jrvKvd. 

TrdvTeg d' vTi-OTdjuoi. <j)LTpovg (pepov, ug yap avuyei 

Mijpc6v?jg, ^epaTTUv dyanTjvopog 'Idofievyog. 

Kd66' dp' £7r' aKTrjg hdTCkov eTrtfTxepu, ev&' dp', 'Axi7i?ievg 

(ppdoaaTO JiarpdKTiu fieya rjplov, rjde ol avru. 

HOM. II. ip. 

What opinion seems to have prevailed in the Homei'ic 
age, and what in the age of Pindar and Sophocles, re- 
specting the condition of the dead ? 

How is deoKelov formed ? Mention similar compounds. 



Appendix. 555 

MENEA. Ka'cTOi kukov irpbg avdpbq avSpa 6i]h6t7iv 
fii]6EV 6iKaiovv To)v £<pEcrT6Tuv Kkveiv. 
ov yap TTOT ovt' av kv Tr6?.Ei v6jj,ot /caAwf 
(pepoivr' av, ev&a fifj Ka-&eaTrjKi) Seog, 
oir' av arpardg ye coxppdvuc apx^tr in 
fir/dkv (p66ov Trp66?i7i/xa fii/d' alSovg ex^v. 
aTJj av6pa XPV, ""^ cu^ia ytvvijat} [itya, 
SoKtlv Treaelv av mv ano fffiiKpov KaKov. 
6eog yap ^u TzpSaeaTiv alxvvTj i9-' 6/iov, 
curr/piav Ix^vTa t6v8' kKiaraao' 
hnov 6' v6pii^eiv 6pav i?' a BovlsTat vapy, 
ravrrjv vdfii^e Trjv Tc67<.iv XP'^'^V ''^ots 
ef ovpiuv Spajiovcav elg 6v&bv iveaelv. 
aXV ECTaTu jioi kclL 6eoq rt Kaipiov, 

Kal flfj SoKU/ilEV SpUVTEQ OV ySu/xE^a 

ovK avTLTiaecv av-&ig av XvTvu/XEda. 
kpTZEi irapaHa^ ravra. ■Kp6(y&EV ovTog ?jv 
al^uv v6pt(jT7'/g' vvv 6' Eyc) /liy' av (ppovo). 

Soph. Ajax. 
aTJJ iararo) fioc Kal Siog. How (according to Plutarch) 
was this principle recognized in the city of Menelaus ? 



IIH. Xa/lav KE2,evo) Sea/ia nplv kTiuiecv riva, 

Kal TTJaSs jetpaf diirrvxovg aviEvac. 
ME. eyi) cJ' aTravdu •/ hXkog ovx "rjaciiiv ci&ev, 

Kal TTJade iroWu) Kvpiiirepog yeyug. 
IIH. vug ; ^ Tov a/ibv oIkov o'lKyaEig juoTiUV 

6evp' ; ovx ^'^'f '^ot tuv Kara 'ZndpTTjv Kparsiv ; 
ME. elXov viv acxfid?i.uTov ek Tpoiag kyu. 
IIH. ovfibg 6i y' avTyv sXaSe vralg vaiSbg ytpag. 
ME. ovKOVv ekeIkov ra/ia tcikelvov t' iiia ; 
IIH. 6pdv Ev, KaKug 6' ov, /j.tjS' aKOKTEiveiv 6ia, 
ME. ug rips' and^Etg oinror' e^ iju^g x^P^Q- 
IIH. GKr/irrpc) 6e rude gov KC'&aifj.d^u Kapa. 
MB. ipavcSv y, Iv' EiSyg^Kal nsXag TrpdaeXd^e fiov. 

EuE. Androm. 



556 Five Years in an English University. 

$1. 'fiAI KE/leveig KaTaK.?i.i,V7'/vai ; 

BA. /Z7j6afj.ug, 

$1. TTUS dai ] 

BA. TO, ySvar' Iktsivs, koI -yv/xvaaTiKoc 

vypbv x^T^i^aaov ceavTov kv Tolg aTpiifiaaiv, 

etveit' ETraiveadv tl tuv ;(;a/l/c6)//drwv 

bpo(pyv d'Eoaai.^ KpEKodc avXfjg ■&avfj.aaov' 

v6up Kara je/pdf' ™? rpaiTE^ag Eiaf^psLv' 

denrvovfiEV aTvovevifj.fi£'&' fjdri aTrevdofiev. 
#1. TTjOof rciv ■&EG)v, EvvnvLov E^Tcu/xEd-a ; 
BA. avTiTjrplg tvefvajjaEV. ol eJe CTVfi7r6Tai 

e'lalv QeupoCj Alaxi-vv^t ^avoQ^ KMuv, 

^Evoq TIC ETEpoQ Trpbc KEcfia'X.iig ' AKEOTopog. 

TOVTOiQ fwOW TO. (JKoXC OTTUg Se^EL KaloQ. 

$1. akfj-^Egj Gig ovSelg AcaKpiuv dt^Erau 
BA. kyu Elaofiai,' K.ai Sy yap Eifi' eyu TLMuv, 
g,6u 6e TcpuTog 'Ap/j.o6lov de^Ei. Si av. 

Akistoph. Vespce. 
«.? ovSdg AtaKp'Mv. Wliat is the point of this ? What 
parody of a ukSXiov is elsewhere given by Aristophanes ? 
What is meant by V'^'^ 'ApfioSiov ? 



EKPATHSE Se kui •jtoi?' "'ElXava OTparov Hv^uvi,, Tvxa te iioTihv 

Kol Tov 'la-&/j.ol Kai 'Ne/ieci GT£(j>avov, Moiaaiai, t' e6uk' ap6aai, 

rplg fJ.£v iv TrdvToio Trvlacai /iax^v, 

Tplg de KOL GEfivoig SankdoLg kv 'AdpaaTEiu vSfiu. 

Zev TTCLTEp, TOV /lav EpaTtti (l>pEvi, Giyo. oi arofia' nav 6s riXog 

kv tW spyov Olid' a^ox'S'cp Kapdta Trpoafspuv T6?ifJ,aVy Tzapai- 

TelTai x^P'-'^' 
yvuTO, BsiaiCj) te koi oaTi.g dfiiTilaTai TTEpl 
eaxoLTOv aMuv Kopv(palg' vnaTov eJ' eux^v Jiica 
*HpaK/leof TE'&fj.dv adelai ys jxev a/j.6o?i.d6av 
kv TETiEToig 6lg 'A'&7]vaiuv viv b/j.(l>al 
Ku/xaaav yaia de Karz&Eiaa irvpl Kapirbg kXaiag 
ljio7^EV "Rpag tov Evdvopa Aabv, kv dyyiuv epKEcnv iraix-rroLKiloig, 

PiKD. JSFem. X. 

Explain a//6o/laJav, Te7i.ETalg, ofKpaL 

yaia 6e k. t. ?.• What modern discovery is illustrated 
by this jDassage ? 



Appendix. 557 



CLASSICAL TRIPOS. 

February 1845. 
Two and a half Hours. 
Translate mto Greek Iambics : 
I DO entreat yon, go not, noble gnests : 
What althongh tyranny and impions hate 
Stand sheltered by a father's hoary hair ? 
What if 'tis he who clothed ns in these limbs 
Who tortures them and triumphs ? What if we, 
The desolate and the dead, were his own flesh, 
His children and his wife, whom he is bound 
To love and shelter ? Shall we therefore find 
No refuge in this merciless wide world ? 
Oh, think what deep wrongs must have blotted out 
First love, then reverence, in a child's prone mind, 
Till it thus vanquish shame and fear ? Oh think ! 
I have borne much, and kissed the sacred hand 
Which crushed us to the earth, and thought its stroke 
Was perhaps some paternal chastisement ! 
Have excused much, doubted, and when no doubt 
Remained, have sought by patience, love and tears, 
To soften him ; and when this could not be, 
I have knelt down through the long sleepless nights 
And lifted up to God, the Father of all, 
Passionate prayers ; and when these were not heard 
I have still borne : — until I meet you here. 
Princes and kinsmen, at this hideous feast 
Given at my brother's death. Two yet remain, 
His wife remains and I, whom if ye save not, 
Ye soon may share such merriment again 
As fathers make over theii* children's graves. 



558 Five Years in an English University. 



CLASSICAL TRIPOS. 

Febkuart, 1845. 
Three Hours. 
TeaKSLATB, with illustrations, when necessary. 
Delectum consulum M. Postumii Pyrgensis cnm 
magno pvope motu rerum factum impediit. Publican- 
us erat Postumius, qui niultis annis parein fraude avar- 
itiaque neminem in civitate habuerat, praeter T. Pompo- 
nium Yeientanum, quern populantem temere agi'os in 
Liicanis ductu Hannonis priore anno ceperant Cai'tha- 
ginienses. Hi, quia publicum periculum erat a vi tem- 
pestatis in iis quae portarentur ad exercitus, et ementiti 
erant falsa naufragia, et ea ipsa quse vera renunciaverant 
fraude ipsorum facta erant non casu. In veteres quas- 
sasque naves paucis et parvi pretii rebus impositis, cum 
mersissent eas in alto, exceptis in prgeparatas scaj)has 
nautis, multiplices fuisse merces ementiebantur. Ea 
fraus indicata M. Atilio prsetori priore anno fuerat, ac 
per eum ad senatum delata, nee tamen ullo senatuscon- 
sulto notata, quia patres ordinem publican orum in tali 
tempore offensum nolebant. Populus severior vindex 
fraudis erat ; excitatique tandem duo tribimi plebis Sp. 
et L. Carvilii, cum rem invisam infamemque cernerent, 
ducentum millium ajris multam M. Postumio dixerunt. 
Cui certandae cum dies advenisset, couciliumque tarn 
frequens plebis adesset ut multitudinem area Capitolii 
vix caperet, perorata causa spes una videbatur esse, si 
C. Servilius Casca tribunus plebis qui propinquus cogna- 
tusque Postumio erat, priusquam tribus ad suifragium 
vocarentur intercessisset. Testibus datis tribuni popu- 
lum summoverunt , sitellaque allata est, ut sortirentur 
ubi Latini suffragium ferrent. Interim publicani instare 
Cascse ut concilio diem eximeret. Populus reclamare : 
et forte in cornu primus sidebat Casca, cui simul metus 
pudorque animum versabat. Cum in eo parum praesidii 
esset, turbandse rei causa publicani per vacuum summo- 
to locum cuneo irruperunt, jurgantes simul cum populo 



Appendix. 559 

tribunisque. IsTec procul dimicatione res erat, cum Ful- 
A'ius consul tribunis " Nonne videtis " inquit " vos in or- 
dinem coactos esse, et rem ad seditionem spectare nisi 
propere dimittitis plebis concilium?" Plebe dimissa 
senatus vocatur, et consules referunt de concilio plebis 
turbato vi atque audacia publicanorum. 



Cum venissent ad Vada Volaterrana qui nominantur 
vident perfamiliarem Naevii, qui ex Gallia pueros venales 
isti adducebat, L. Publicium, qui ut Roman venit narrat 
Naevio, quo in loco viderit Quintium : quod nisi ex Pub- 
licio narratum Naevio, esset non tam cito res in conten- 
tionem veuisset. Turn Na3vius pueros circum amicos 
dimittit ; ipse suos necessarios ab atriis Liciniis et a fau- 
cibus macelli corrogat ut ad tabulam Sextiam sibi adsint 
bora secunda postridie. Veniunt frequentes. Testifica- 
tur iste, P. Quintium non stitisse, et se stitisse. Tabulse 
maximae signis hominum nobilium consignantur : disce- 
titur. Postulat a Burrieno pra3tore Nsevius, ut ex edicto 
bona possidere liceat. Jussit bona proscribi ejus quicum 
familiaritas fuerat, societas erat, affinitas liberis istius 
vivis divelli nullo modo poterat. Qua ex re intelligi 
facile potuit, nullum esse officium tam sanctum atque 
sollemne quod non avaritia comminuere atque violare 
soleat. Libellos Sex. Alphenus procurator P. Quintii, 
familiaris et propinquus Sex. Na3vii, dejicit : servulum 
unum quern iste prehenderat abducit : denunciat sese 
procuratorem esse ; istum lequum esse famce fortunisque 
P. Quintii consulcre, et adventum ejus expectare ; quod 
si facere nolit, atque imbiberit ejusmodi rationibus ilium 
ad suas conditiones perducere, sese nihil precari, et si 
quid agere velit judicio defendere. Hoec dum Romae 
geruntur, Quintius interea contra jus, consuetudinera, 
edicta prastorum, de saltu agroque communi a servis 
communibus vi detruditur. 



Inspiciamus, si placet, exta primum. Persuaderi 
igitur cuiquam potest ea quae signilicari dicuntur extis 
cognita esse haruspicibus observatione diuturna ? Quam 
diuturna ista fuit \ aut quam louginquo tempore ob- 



560 Five Tears in an English University. 

servari potnit? aut quomodo est collata inter ipsos, 
qu£e pars inimica, quae pars familiaris esset : qiiocl fis- 
sum periculum, quod commodum aliquod ostenderet? 
Certe si est in extis aliqua vis quse declaret futura, ne- 
cesse est earn aut cum rerum natura esse conjunctam, 
aut conformari quodara modo numini deorum. Atqui 
cum rerum natura tanta tamque prseclara, in omnes par- 
tes motusque diftusa, quid habere potest commune, non 
dicam gallinaceum fel, (sunt enim qui vel argutissima 
hsec exta esse dicant) sed tauri opimi jecur aut cor aut 
puimo ? quid habent naturale, quo declarari possit quid 
futurum sit ? Democritus tamen non inscite nugatur ut 
physicus, quo genere nihil arrogantius : " Quod 'st ante pe- 
des nemo spectat : coeli scrutantur plagas." Verum is ta- 
men habitu extorum et colore declarari censet hgec dun- 
taxat, pabuli genus et earum rerum quas terra prpcreet vel 
ubertatem vel tenuitatem. O mortalem beatum ! cui 
certo scio ludum nunquam defuisse. Hunccine hominem 
tantis delectatum esse nugis, ut non videret turn futurum 
id veri simile, omnium cum pecudum exta eodein tem- 
pore in eundem habitum se coloremque convertei'ent ? 
Bed si eadem hora alise pecudis jecur nitidum atque 
l^lenum est, alise horridum et exile ; quid est quod de- 
clarari possit habitu extoi'um et colore ? An hoc ejus- 
dem modi est, quale Pherecydeum illud, quod est a te 
dictum ? qui cum aquam ex puteo vidisset haustam, 
terrae motum dixit futurum. Parum, credo, impuden- 
ter, quod cum factus esset motus dicere audent, quae vis 
id effecerit : etiamne futurum esse aquas jugis colore 
jjrresentiunt ? Multa istiusmodi dicuntur in scholis ; sed 
credere omnia vide ne non sit necesse. Verum sint 
sane ista Democritea vera. Quando ea nos extis exqui- 
rimus ? aut quando aliquid ejusmodi ab haruspice inspec- 
tis extis audivimus ? Ab aqua aut ab igni pericula mo- 
nent : turn hereditates turn damna denunciant : fissum 
familiare et vitale' tractant : caput jecoris ex omni parte 
diligentissime considerant : si vero id non est inventum, 
nihil jjutant accidere j^otuisse tristius. 

What were the opinions of Democritus on the origin 
and constitution of the world ? By what Latin philoso- 



Appendix. 561 

phers adopted, and by what arguments does Cicero re- 
fute them ? 

Ante tempus excisfe ISTumantife, proeclara in Hispania 
D. Bruti militia fuit : qui, penetratis omnibus Hispaniae 
gentibas, ingenti vi hominum urbiumque potitus numero, 
aditis qufe vix audita erant, Galla3ci cognomen meruit. 
Et ante eum paucis annis tam severum illius Q. Macedo- 
nici in his gentibus imperium fuit, ut, cum urbem Con- 
trebiam nomine in Hispania oppugnaret, pulsas praecipiti 
loco quinque cohortes legionarias eodem protinus subire 
juberet : facientibusque omnibus in procinctu testamen- 
ta, vehit ad certam mortem eundum foret, non de- 
territus proposito, quem moriturum miserat militem 
victorem recepit. Tantum eifecit mixtus timori pudor, 
spesque desperatione qua?sita. Hie virtute et severitate 
facti, at Fabius ^milianus Paulli exemplo discipliniie in 
Hispania fuit clarissimus. Deccm deinde interpositis 
annis, qui Ti. Gracchum, idem Caium fratrem ejus oc- 
cupavit furor, tam virtutibus ejus omnibus quam huic 
errori similem, ingenio etiam eloquentiaque longe praes- 
tantiorem. Qui cum summa quiete animi civitatis prin- 
ceps esse posset, vel vindicandae fraternse mortis gratia, 
vel prsemuniendie regalis potentijE, ejusdem exempli trib- 
unatum ingressus, longe majora et acriora repetens, dabat 
civitatem omnibus Italicis. Extendebat earn pene usque 
Alpes; dividebat agros; vetabat quenquam civem plus 
quingentis jugeribus habere : quod aliquando lege Licin- 
ia cautum erat : nova constituebat portoria : novis colo- 
niis replebat provincias ; judicia a senatu transferebat ad 
equites; frumentum plebi dare instituerat; nihil immo- 
tum, nihil tranquillum, nihil quietum denique in eodem 
statu relinquebat ; quin alterum etiam continuavit tribu- 
natum. 

What were the enactments of the Licinian laws ? 
Explain " Classem procinctam extra pomserium videre 
religio est." — Gell. x. 15. 
24* 



562 . Five Years in an English XTniversity. 



CLALSICAL TRIPOS. 

Febeuary, 1845. 

Two and a half hours. 

Teakslate into Geeek Peose : 

It is evident to any one who takes a survey of the 
objects of human knowledge, that they are either ideas 
actually imprinted on the senses, or else such as are per- 
ceived by attending to the passions and ojDerations of 
the mind, or lastly ideas formed by help of memory and 
imagination, either compounding, dividing, or barely 
representing, those originally perceived in the aforesaid 
ways. By sight I have the ideas of light and colors, 
with their several degrees and variations. By touch I 
perceive, for example, hard and soft, heat and cold, mo- 
tion and resistance, and of all these more and less either 
as to quantity or degree. Smelling furnishes me with 
odors, the palate with tastes, and heai'ing conveys sounds 
to the mind in all their variety of tone and composi- 
tion. And as several of these are observed to accom- 
pany each other, they come to be marked by one name 
and so to be reputed as one thing. Thus, for example, 
a certain color, taste, smell, figure, and consistence hav- 
ing been observed to go together, are accounted one 
distinct thing, signified by the name " apple." Other 
collections of ideas constitute a stone, a tree, a book, 
and the like sensible things ; which, as they are pleasing 
or disagreeable, excite the passions of love, hatred, joy, 
grief, and so forth. 
The Frinciples of Human Knowledge. Bishop Beeke- 

LET. 



Flaminius was through life the enemy of the aris- 
cratical party ; and our accounts of those times come 
from writers whose feelings were highly aristocratical. 
Besides his defeat and death at Thrasymenus made the 



Appendix, 563 

Romans in general unfriendly to his memory ; as natu- 
ral pride is always ready to ascribe disasters in war to 
the incapacity either of the general or the government. 
But Flamiuius was a brave and lionest man, over confi- 
dent it is true, and over vehement, but neither a dema- 
gogue nor a mere blind j^artizan. Like many others of 
the noblest of the plebians, he was impatient of that 
craft of augury which he well knew was no genuine and 
simple-hearted superstition, but an engine of aristocrat- 
ical policy, used by the nobility against those whom they 
hated or feared, yet the time was not come when the 
people at large saw this equally ; and therefore Flamiu- 
ius shared the fate, and incurred the blame, of those pre- 
mature reformers, who, putting the sickle to the corn 
before it is ripe, reap only mischief to themselves, and 
obtain no fruit for the world. 

AE2!fOLD's History of Eome, Yol. III. p. 33. 



CLASSICAL TRIPOS. 

Februaey. 1845. 

Three Sours. 

Translate into English, explain and illustrate : 

QUALIS coena tamen ? Yinum, quod succida nolit 
Lana pati : de couviva Corybanta videbis. 
Jurgia proludunt ; sed mox et pocula torques 
Saucius, et rubra deterges vulnera mappa, 
Inter vos quoties libertorumque cohortem 
Pugna Saguntina fervet commissa lagena. 
Ipse capillato diffusum consule potat, 
Calcatamque tenet bellis socialibus uvam, 
Cardiaco nunquam cyathum missurus amico. 
Cras bibet Albanis aliquid de montibus aut de 
Setinis, cujus patriam titulumque senectus 
Delevit multa veteris fuligine testae ; 
Quale coronati Thrasea Helvidiusque bibebant 
Brutorum et Cassi natalibus. Ipse capaces 
Heliadum crustas, et inaequales beryllo 



564 Five ITears in an English University. 

Yirro tenet phialas: tibi non committitur aurura; 

Vel, si quando datur, custos affixus ibidem, 

Qui numeret gemmas, unguesque observet acutos 

Da veniam : praeclara illic laudatur jaspis. 

Nam Virro, ut multi, gemmas ad pocula transfert 

A digitis, quas iu vaginae ii'onte solebat 

Ponere zelotypo juvenis prjelatus larbse. 

Tu Beneventani sutoris nomen habeuLeni 

Siceabis calicem nasorum quatuor, ac jam 

Quassatum, et rupto poscentem sulfura vitro. 



LUPIS et agnis quanta sortito obtigit, 

Tecum mihi discordia est, 
Ibericis peruste funibus latus, 

Et crura dura compede. 
Licet superbus ambules pecunia, 

Fortuna non mutat genus. 
Videsne, Sacram metiente te viam 

Cum bis trium ulnarum toga, 
Ut ora vertat hue et liuc euntium 

Liberrima indignatio ? 
" Sectus ilagellis hie triumviralibus 

Prseconis ad fastidium, 
Arat falerni mille fundi jugera, 

Et Appiam mannis terit ! 
Sedilibusque magnus in primis eques, 

Othone contemto, sedet ! 
Quid attinet tot ora navium gravi 

Rostrata duci pondere 
Contra latrones atque servilem manum, 

Hoc, hoc tribuno militum ? " 



DO. MiRABAE, si tu mihi quidquam adferres novi. A^N". 

Hei, 
Metuo lenonem ne quid — G. Suo capiti fuat. 
PH. Non mihi credis ? DO. Hariolare. PH. Sin Mem 

do. DO. Fabulge. 
PH. Fceneratum. istuc beu eficium tibi pulcre dices. DO. 

Logi. 



Appendix. 565 

PH. Crede mihi, gaudebis facto : verum liercle hoc est. 

DO. Somnia. 
PH. Experire, non est longum. DO. Cantilenam ean- 

dem canis. 
PH. Tu cognatus, tu parens, tu amicus, tu — DO. Garri 

modo. 
PH. Adeon ingenio esse duro te atqiae inexorabili, 

Ut neque misericordia, neqiie precibus molliri 
queas .-' 
DO. Adeon te esse incogitantem atque impudentem, 
Phajdria, 
Ut phaleratis dictis ducas me ; et meam ductes 
gratiis .-• 
AN. Miseritura est. PH. Hei veris vincor. GE. Quam 

uterque est similis sui ! 
PH. Neque, Antipho alia cum occupatus esset sollicitu- 
dine, 
Tum hoc esse mi objectum malum ? AN. Ah, quid 
istuc autem est Phaedria 1 
PH. O fortunatissime Antipho. AN. Egone ? PH. 
Cui quod amas, domi'st ; 
Nee cum hujus modi unquam usus venit ut conflic- 
tares malo. 
AN. Min domi'st ? immo, id quod aiunt, auribus teneo 
lupum : 
[Nam neque quo pacto a me amittam, neque, uti 
retineam, scio.] 
DO. Ipsum istuc mi in hoc est. AN. Heia, ne parum 
leno sies. 
Numquid hie confecit ? PH. Hicine ? quod homo 

inhumanissimus, 
Pamphilam meam yendidit. GE. Quid ? vendi- 
dit ? AN. Ain' vendidit ? 
PH. Yendidit. DO. Quam indignum facinus, ancillam 

aere emptam suo. 
PA. Nequeo exorare, ut me maneat, et cum illo ut 
mutet fidem, 
Triduum hoc ; dum id, quod est promissum, ab 

amicis argentum aufero. 
Si non tum dedero, unam prseterea horam ne op- 
pertus siet. 



566 Five Years in an English University. 

Ill^ autem, paribus quas fulgere cernis in armis, 
Concordes animae nunc, et dum nocte prementur, 
Heu ! quantum inter se belluui, si lumina vitse 
Attigerint, quantas acies stragemque ciebunt ! 
Aggeribus socer Alpinis atque arce Monceci 
Descendens ; gener adversis instructus Eois. 
Ne, pueri, ne tanta animis assuescite bella ; 
Neu patriae validas in viscera vertite vires. 
Tuque prior, tu parce, genus qui ducis Olympo ; 
Projice tela manu, sanguis mens. 
Ille triumphata Capitolia ad alta Corintho 
Victor aget currum, caesis insignis Achivis. 
Eruet ille Argos, Agamemnoniasque Mycenas, 
Ipsumque ^aciden, genus armipotentis Achilli ; 
Ultus avos Trojse, templa et temerata Minervae. 
Auis te, magne Cato, taciturn, aut te, Cosse, relinquat ? 
Quis Gracchi genus, aut geminos, duo fulmina belli, 
Scipiadas, cladem Libyse, parvoque potentem 
Fabricium, vel te sulco, Serrane, serentem ? 
Quo fessum rapitis, Fabii ? tu maximus ille es, 
IJnus qui nobis cunctando restituis rem. 



NuiTC ea quae nobis membrorum dextera pars est. 

In speculeis fit utei laeva videatur, eo quod 

Planitiem ad speculi veniens quom offendit imago, 

Non convortitur incolomis, sed recta retrorsum 

Sic eliditur, ut si quis, prius arida quam sit 

Cretea persona, allidat piliaeve trabive, 

Atque ea continuo rectam si fronte figuram 

Servet, et elisam retro sese exprimat ipsa : 

Fiet, ut ante oculus fuerit qui dexter, hie idem 

Nunc sit laevus, et e laevo sit mutua dexter. 

Fit quoque, de speculo in speculum ut tradatur imago ; 

Quinque etiam sex, ut fieri simulacra suerint. 

Nam quaequamque retro parte interiore latebunt, 

Inde tamen, quamvis torte penitnsque remota. 

Omnia per flexos aditus educta licebit 

Pluribus base speculeis videantur in sedibus esse. 



Appendix. 567 



CLASSICAL TRIPOS. 

Februaky, 1845. 

One Hour and a Half. 

Translate into English : 

TuRBATUS his Nero, et propinquo die, quo quartura 
decimura jetatis annum Britannicus explebat, volutare 
secum mode matris violentiam, modo ipsius indolem 
levi quidem experimento nuper cognitam, quo tamen 
favoreni late quoesivisset. Festis Saturno diebus inter 
alia fequalium ludicra regnum lusu sortientium evenerat 
ea sors Neroni; igitur ceteris diversa nee ruborem 
adlatura : ubi Britannico jussit, exsurgeret progressus- 
que in medium cantum aliquem inciperet, inrisum ex eo 
sperans pueri sobrios quoqe convictus nedum temulen- 
tos ignorantis, ille constanter exorsus est carmen quo 
evolutum eum sede patria rebiisque summis significaba- 
tur; unde orta misei'atio manifestior, quia dissimula- 
tionem nox et lascivia exemerat. Nero intellecta invi- 
dia odium intendit, urgentibusque Agrippinge minis, 
quia nullum crimen neque jubere csedem fratris palam 
audebat, occulta molitur j^ararique venenum jubet minis- 
tro PoUione Julio prgetorife cohortis tribuno, cujus cura 
attinebatur damnata veneficii nomine Locusta, multa 
scelerum fama; nam ut proximus quisque Britannico 
neque fas neque fidem pensi haberet, olim pro visum erat. 

Explain and illustrate regnum lusu sortientium. 
What other customs prevailed at the feast ? 



Tranquillus, contubernalis mens, vult emere agel- 
lum, quem venditare amicus tuus dicitur. Rogo cures, 
quanti a^quum est, emat : ita enim delectabit emisse. 
Nam mala emtio semper ingrata est, eo maxime, quod 
exprobrare stultitiam domino videtur. In hoc autem 
agello, si modo arriserit pretium, Tranquilli mei stoma- 
chum multa sollicitant, vicinitas urbis, opportunitas 



568 Five Years in an English University. 

viae, mediocritas villse, modus ruris, qui avocet raagis, 
quam distringat. Scholasticis porro dominis, ut hie est, 
sufficit abunde tantum soli, ut relevare caput, reficere 
oculos, reptare per limitem, unamque semitam terere, 
omnesque viticulas suas Bosse, et numerare arbusculas 
possint. Hsec tibi exposui, quo magis scires, quantum 
ille esset mihi quantum ego tibi debiturus, si pvsediolum 
istud, quod commendatur his dotibus, tam salubriter 
emerit, ut poenitentiae locum non relinquat. Vale. 

Hoc agello, prsediolum istud. Why is the demon- 
strative pronoun varied ? 



CLASSICAL TRIPOS. 

Febeuart, 1845. 

Our Sour and a Half. 

Tran"Slate : 
AM. NoN^ audivisti, amabo, 

Quo pacto leno clanculum nos hinc auferre voluit 
In Siciliam, et, quidquid domi fuit, in navem im- 

posivit ? 
Ea nunc perierunt omnia. TR. Oh, Neptune lep- 

ide, salve ? 
Nee te aleator ullus est sapientior. Profecto 
Nimis lepide jecisti bolum : perjurum perdidisti ! 
Sed nunc ubi est leno Labrax .'' AM. Perit potando 

opinor : 
Neptunus magnis poculis hac nocte eum invitavit. 
TR. Credo hercle avayKaiug datum, quod biberet. Ut 

ego amo te, 
Mea Amjaelisca ! ut dulcis es ! ut mulsa dicta di- 

cis ! 
Sed tu et Palaestra quomodo salvae estis ? AM. 

Scibis faxo. 
Et navi timidse ambse in scapham insiluimus, quia 

videmus. 



Appendix. 569 

Ad saxa navem ferrier ; properans exsolvi restim. 
Dum illi tinient, nos cum sca^^ha tempestas dextro- 

vorsum 
Diflert ab illis ; itaque nos ventisqiie fluctibusque 
Jactataj exemplis plurimis miserae perpetuam noc- 

tem. 
Vix hodie ad litus j^ertulit nos ventus exanimatas. 
TR. Novi : Neptunus ita solet. Quamvis fastidiosus 
*^dilis est ; si quae improbae sunt merces, jactat 

omnis. 
AM. Vae capiti atque eetati tuae ! TR. Tuo, mea 

Ampelisca. 
Scivi leuouem facere hoc, quod fecit ; saepe dixi. 
*Capillum proraittam oj)tumum est, occipiamque 

hariolari. 



Alma Pales, faveas jjastoria sacra canenti ; 

Prosequor officio si tua festa pio, 
Certe ego de vitulo cinerem, stipulasque fabales, 

Saepe tuli plena, * februa casta, manu. 
Certe ego transilui positas ter in ordine flammas; 

Virgaque roratas laurea misit aquas. 

His Dea placanda est : base tu conversus ad ortus 

Die ter, et in vivo prolue rore manus. 
Turn licet, adposita, veluti cratere, camella, 

Lac niveum potes, purpureamque sapam. 
Moxque per ardentes stij)ulae crepitantis. acervos 

Trajicias celeri strenua membra pede. 
Expositus mos est. Moris mihi restat origo. 

Turba facit dubium; coeptaque nostra tenet. 
Omnia purgat edax ignis, vitiumque metallis 

Excoquit : idcirco cum duce purgat oves. 
An, quia cunctarum contraria semina rerum 

Sunt duo, discordes, ignis et unda, Dei, 
Junxerunt elementa patres ; aptumque putarunt 

Ignibus et sparsa tangere corpus aqua ? 
*Au quod in his vitae causa est : hiec perdidit exsul : 

*His nova fit conjux : haec duo magna putant ? 

* Explain particularly the words or lines thus marked. 



570 Five Years in an English University. 



CLASSICAL TRIPOS. 

Febeuaet, 1845. 
One Sour and a Half. 
TEAiq'SLATE into Ekglish, explain and illustrate : 

'ESTI yap elf ^hv bv ohrac rexvcKug exsiv avTu) Xdyog, 
nepl Tov awpoSovXevTov. v6/j.og kari, (pyaiv, eav a^icog fj hovkrj 6ok^ 
SovXevcai Supedg, 6c66vai tov dijaov tt/v Supsav avTy. ravr' SKypsTO, 
(prjdiv, 6 EincjTdTTjg, SiexEipoTdvrjaev 6 dijiiog^ eSo^ev. ovdev del, ^rjai, 
Trpo6ovX£vfj,aTog evrav^a' Kara yap vduov fjv to, yivdfisva. kyu 6' avrb 
TohvavTiov ol/iai, vofiii^G) de Kal ii/ilv avvdd^siv, irepl tovtuv to, rrpo- 
CovXev/iara kK(pepet.v fidvuv, Ttepl ctv K.e'kevovaiv ol v6/j.oc' eweI iTEpl uv 
ys [xfj KEivrai vd/xoi, ovds ypd(l>£tv ryv dpxfjv npoariKEi, ov6e ev drjirov. 
<j)T/(jEi Tolvvv TovTov CLKaoag TOV TpdiTov El?i,?}(j>Evai Tag SovTidg^ baai tvu- 
TTOT Exoval Trap' v/iuv dupsdv^ Kal ovSefiia yEyEvijad-ai 7rpo6ov?iEv/j,a 
nunoTE ; lyw J' olfiai fidv oiixl Mysiv avTov oArj-Q-Eiav, jiaXkov 6e ol6a 
cafcjg' oh iifjv aXk' eI tovto tolovt eotI Ta/id1i(TTa, 6 v6[iog 6e Myei 
TavavTia, ovxi oTi ■KoXkdiug rjiidpTriraL Srjnov irpdvEpov, 6cd tovt' 
inE^afiapTTjTEOv ectI Kal vvv, d/l/ld TovvavTiov dpKTEOv, ug 6 vd/xog 
KE?i.EVEC, Ta ToiavTa tcoieIv dvayKal^Eiv, anb aov irpuTov. av 6fj fjJI) 
"kiyE ug ykyovE tovto ■Ko7\XdKLgy okTC ug ovtu Trpoa^KEi yiyvEadaL. 
ov yap, EC Ti iruTTOTS fifj KaTd Tovg vdfiovg iwpdx'&Vt "'^ ^^ tovt 
EfiifiTjau, did TOVT awocpvyoig av SiKaiug, d/i/ld tto/I/Iw jidTCkov dMc- 
KOLO. cJawEp yap eI Tig ekeivuv wpoT^Xco, gv Tad' ovk av sypaipag, 
ovTug, av av vvv diKTjv dug, dXkog ov ypdipsi. 



'H 6e andvotd egtiv vKOfiov^ alcxpf^v spyuv Kal 2,6yov' 6 d^ 
airovEVorjiiEvog Toiovrdg Tig, olog b/idaai Taxv, KaKug aKovoac Kal 
?iOi6oprjd-^vat 6vvd/j,£vog, rci ^i?et dySpaidg Tig Kal dvaffEffvp/iiEvog 
Kal TtavTOTTOidg. 'AfiEXst, SwaTog Kal opxElc'&aL vy<puv tov KdpSaKa 
Kal wpoauTTElov /li) exuv iv ku/iiku X°PV' ^^^ '^'^ ■&avfiaai ds Tovg 
Xa?uKovg EKTisyELV, Ka&' EKaaTov napii)v' Kal fidxEiy&aL Tolg Tb ovfiSoXov 
(j>Epov(Jt. Kal npolKa ^EupEiv d^iovai. Asivbg 6e Kal navdoKEvaatit 



A'p'pendix. 571 

/cat TTopvoSouKJjaai, nai rt'kuvTJcai^ nal fiTjdefxiav alcxp^v ipyaaiav 
cnrodoKifidGai, oAAo KTjpvTTEiv, fiayeipeveiv, Kv6evEcv, fiTjTpayvpTetv ^ 
aTTayea-^ai kIotttjc, to dea/nurf/piov irTiEiu xp^vov oIkeIv, ^ ttjv avmv 
o'lKiav. Kal tovto 6' av Elvai So^eu tuv TZEpt'larafiEvuv Tovq bx^ovg 
npoaKaT.ovvTuv, fiEyaXt} ry (puvfi /cat Trapeppuyvia SiaTiEyofievuv Tvpbg 
avTovc Kul XocSopovfiEvuV Kal jiETa^v ol /lev Tvpoffiaffiv, ol 6 aiziaai, 
nplv anovcai avrov' aXka toIq jiev apxv'^, Tolg Se avA?ia6^v, rolg 
6e fiepog tov npayfiarog MyEC, ovk aXkug ■dEupElad^ai d^iuv rijv 
an6voiav avrov, t] brav y iravT/yvpcg. 'iKavbg 6e koc SiKaq rag /ikv 
ipEvyEiv, rag dt Siukeiv, rag Se k^6/ivva-&at, ralg 6e Tzapslvai exuv 
ix'ivov Ev TO irpoKoXiTiG) Kal op/ia^ovg ypa/j/LtariSiuv kv ralg x^pf^^v, 
OVK dnodoKifial^uv Ss iroTJ.uv ayopaiuv arparrjyE'tv, Kal ev^vg roiiroig 
davEi^Ecv Kal rfjg Spaxpv? tokov rpia f]iJiLu667^ia rrjg y/xEpag nparrsa- 
^ai, Kal EipodEVEiv rd /nayEipE'ta, rd Ix'^voiruTiEla, rd raptxoT^io^Ela, 
Kal rovg roKovg otto tov kinvo^fjfiarog elf ttjv yvd'dov kKMyEiv, 



CLASSICAL TRIPOS. 

Febeuary, 1845. 
One Hour and a Salf. 
Tbajs"SLATe into English Prose : 

$0PKTN02 61 rig kari 2-c/itjv, dlioio yspovrog, 
kv 6?ifi(i)'I-&dKTig' 6vo 6e npo6?i'^TEg kv avr<f> 
OKral dnoppuyEg, ?it/j.£vog noriirEnrTivlai' 
air' dvkfiuv CKswduac 6vaar;uv fikya Kv/ia 
iKTo&EV Evroa&EV 6e t" dvEV SecjioIo /ikvovaiv 
viJEg kvffffE2,fioc ot' av bpfiov /lErpov 'iKcpvrai, 
aiiTap knl Kparbg Ti^ifisvog ravvcpv'K'kog kTiaiij, 
ayxb'^t 6' avTTJg dvrpov knt^parov, T/EpoEidkgj 
Ipbv "Nvfiipduv, al 'NT/'iddEg KaMovrai. 
ev 6e KprjTTjpkg te Kal diKpLc^opfJEg lacsiv 
J\.dlvoL, Ev&a 6' ETTEira ri-&ai66a(Tovm jik'KLaaau 
ev <J' ijdar' aEvdovra' 6vu de re ol ■&vpai E\alv' 
al fiEV npbg Bopkao, KaraiSaral dvQ pu-rvotGiv, 
al (J' av Tzpbg '^otov eial, ■dEUTEpat' ov6e tc KEivy 
avdpsg kakpxovrai, aTCk' d^avdruv 666g kariv. 

Trace the different significations of ^^fj^og. What are 



572 Five Years in an English University. 

the distinctions between diy/ioc, Troliq, aarv, and "what Latin 
words do they correspond to ? 

BA. EI TOL Kparoiiat nalds^ 'AlyvTrrov asd-ev 
v6fiu 7r67ieug (pdaaovTEg kyyvrara yevovq 
slvat, rig av rolaS' avTLu-Qfivac ■&k'A,OL ; 
del TOi ae (pEvyeiv Kara vo/iovg rovg olKo-&ev, 
og ohn exovGL Kvpog ovdev ajLuj)! cov. 
XO. tJiiiTi ttot' ovv yevoi/iav vnoxEi-pi-og 

Kpareaiv apaevuv vnaarpov 6k rot 
fiiJX^P opi-so/iai ydiiov 6va(ppovog 
<pvya. ^ii/Lt/iaxov 6' iM/xevog diaav^ 
Kplve ai6ag to Tvpog d^Euv. 
BA. ovK evKpcTov TO Kp'i/ia' /j.y fi' alpoit Kptrijv. 
eItvov Se /cat Trptv, ovk avsv drjfiov raSe 
irpd^ai/x' av, ov6e tTEp KpaTuv' koI fiijnoTt 

eItTTI /i£6)f, el TTOV Tl pLTj TOlOV TVXOt, 

hTTrj7'.v6ag tcuuu, aitcdkEaag ndAiv. 
XO. afifOTEpovg ojualfiuv rdd' inianoTTEl 

ZEvg ETspoppsTT^g, vk/xuv el/cdrwf 
ddcKa /LLEV KUKolg, baia 6' kwojioig. 

Tl, T0)v6' if laOV pETVOflEVUV, /lETaTi- 

yslg TO Siaaiov sp^ai ; 

What is the metre of the choral parts ? 



2<i>irrET' , d[j.a7iXo6ETat,, to, Spdy/naTa, /i^ irapiuv nf 
eIkti' avKivoL avSpEg, dnL'keTO x ovTog 6 /iia'&dg. 
eg [ioperjv dvefiov rag Kopdvog d to fid v/nfiiv 
f] C,t(l>vpov ^Iettetu' TTiaivETai 6 ardxvg ovTug. 
cItov dTioiuvTsg (^evyev to /leaafidpivbv vnvov' 
EK Ka?id/J.ag dxvpov teM-&ei, TafidaSE fidTiLCTa. 
dpxeo'^cLi- 6' dfiuvTeg, eyeipop.Evu KopvaaXku, 
Kat Xr/yEiv ehdovTog' e'XtvviJai 6e to Kavp-a. 
EVKTog 6 TU jiaTpdxu, naldsg, ^log' oh fiE?i.edacvsi 
Tov TO tvieIv iyxEvvra' ndpEOTi yap d(p-dovov avr^. 

ndlALOV, W '■KLjJ.E^.TlTd fl?MpyVpe, TOV ^UKOV E-tpsiV 

jifj ^TCLTd[H)g Tav x^'-P'^ KaTanpiuv to kv/j.cvov. 



